Athboy C.S Delegates Attend Comhairle na nOg. Annual Youth Conference

By Autumn Casey, 6th Year Student Council Member 

On Thursday, three of my student council members, Erin Melligan, Niamh Colvin, Nenyasha Maticha and I went to the Comhairle na nOg Annual Youth Conference in the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan.

Comhairle na nOg is about empowering the young people of Ireland to help shape our country. The topic of discussion for all schools was “What stress do you experience in school?” We were split up and were put into a group with other students from different schools around Meath, and we started by doing icebreakers. The questions asked were about our hobbies and our favourite subjects in school. This helped us feel more comfortable around the other students attending from all the schools in the region.  

When the ice breakers were over, we started working on the main topic of discussion. On every table, there was a poster paper with three circles. The bigger circle had the question of “What stress do you experience in school?” The middle circle question was “What do you do when you deal with stress?” and the smaller question was “What can we do to help?” We worked our way towards the smaller circle, and groups discussed what their stresses are and how they deal with them. After the groups wrote down their answers, facilitators from Comhairle na nOg came over, and we spoke in a more in-depth way about the issues we raised. 

Afterwards, we had a guest speaker named Thomas from The Ombudsman for Children’s Office (OCO), an organisation that investigates complaints about services provided to children by public organisations. It is a human rights institution that promotes the rights and welfare of young people under 18 years of age living in Ireland. He talked about what we can do if we feel like our voices are not heard. He talked about our day’s main topic of stress and said that children can feel overloaded with too much and that we should take a step back. The overall message he wanted to convey is that children have rights and that we shouldn’t be afraid to speak out because a young person’s voice and opinions are important

After this insightful talk with Thomas, we were given pieces of paper to vote on two representatives of our school to become members of Comhairle na nOg Youth Council. The girls and I decided to put Erin’s and my name forward, and when all schools voted for their two peers, they were tallied up, and we listened to who had the most votes in each school. 

Erin and I became the Comhairle na nOg Youth Council members representing Athboy Community School. This is an amazing opportunity for us to speak, to have our voices heard and maybe inspire others to follow. What I took from this conference is that young people should feel like their voices are heard, that their opinion does matter and that you can make a huge impact by just getting involved. This was an amazing experience. 

A huge thank you to Mr. O’Dowd and Mr. Magner for bringing us and giving us the opportunity to take part in this event and thank you to my Student Council members Erin Melligan, Niamh Colvin, and Nenyasha Maticha, for putting their names forward to come to Comhairle na nOg today. I couldn’t ask for a better group to help me represent the school and young people’s voices.