Having been inspired by a documentary by broadcaster and natural historian, David Attenborough, a group of Transition Year students at St. Oliver’s Community College, have embarked on a project to create a biodiversity garden in their school.
The project is part of a national programme run by Young Social Innovators which is a non-profit organisation that encourages young people to use their talents, insights, passion and creativity to come up with innovative solutions to social challenges.
Through fun and engaging programmes, students are supported to create team-based action-projects on issues they care about, putting their innovative ideas into action to bring about positive social change for the benefit of people, communities and the environment.
The St. Oliver’s team were shocked when they discovered that 42% of Mammals ,15% of Birds and 45% of butterflies and reptiles in the EU are under threat. Invasive species are upsetting the balance of nature causing damage to the tune of 12 billion euros every year.
“It is time to start protecting our life support system by investing in projects so as to leave space for nature” they say. This is why we created a biodiverse garden on our school grounds so, that we can teach young adults how easy it is to create and help nature and our planet at home in their own gardens.”
When Drogheda Life visited St. Oliver’s on Thursday afternoon the team were busy, with the guidance of their teacher Seoidin Clarke, planting their seedlings in a plot in the corner of the school grounds.
The theme of biodiversity, climate change and the protection of nature was of particular interest to one member of the Ollie’s team, 16-year-old Brian Everard from Donore.
Brian lives on a farm and he sees biodiversity as one of the most important issued in farming today. When he’s not at school Brian spends a lot of his time feeding cattle, looking after the calves and milking cows on the family farm. He reckons it is vital that farmers bring biodiversity into their lives.
Of course, no programme for change is compete without getting the message out to the wider world so students Carolina Koenig and Olivia Fesol had the task of making a video to get their message across.
You can see their video here: https://youngsocialinnovators.us.launchpad6.com/speakout2021/entry/66
