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Youth Connect

As part of our transition year programme, Mr Farrelly from into the top 30 which meant we were nominated for the
the Youth Connect organisation came in to us to speak ‘People’s Choice Award’. This meant that we had to get our
to us about our rights in the workplace. He also told us family, friends, school and local community to vote for our
about a competition that the Youth Connect organisation video. We also had another intense wait for the next round
were hosting. Claire Turner, Andrea Chan, Kate Agaba and of the competition which was getting into the top 15. Once
I decided we would like to partake in the competition to again we were on cloud nine receiving the news of getting
make a three minute video about income inequality. nominated into the top 15 videos. This meant that our video
was going to be shown in the Savoy Cinema in screen one
We had a total of five weeks to brainstorm, write the script,
shoot and edit our video. at the awards ceremony.
Claire, Andrea, Kate, and I attended the #youth4decentwork
We began the process by brainstorming what we were
going to include in our video. After a week of intense awards ceremony accompanied by our teacher Ms.
brainstorming we decided to use Abraham Maslow’s theory Dennigan in February. It was a nerve wrecking lead up to
of his hierarchy of needs to portray how income inequality the big day. The day started off with photographs and
can affect people’s motivation to succeed in life. interviews followed by watching each of the top 15 videos.
It was a once in a life time experience seeing ourselves and
During the following week we began writing our script. We our own piece of work on a cinema screen. Unfortunately
settled on what each characters role was going to be, how we narrowly lost out on winning our category which was
we were going to open and close our video etc. It was a long ‘Best Interpretation of the Income Inequality’. However, we
process with many difficult decisions to make. didn’t give up hope and went onto winning the ‘People’s
This then brought us up to our Christmas holidays. Choice Award’ later in the day. It was a very exciting and
Throughout our break we filmed each part of our video. This surprising moment for us all and words didn’t describe how
aspect of the project was a lot of fun but it got very stressful happy we were. We won a workshop with image Ireland as
trying to keep within our 3 minute time frame. Therefore well as overnight stay in a hotel.
we had to go back to the drawing board and remove some Overall the whole competition was an amazing experience
aspects of the script. When we returned back to school we which we learned many new and exciting skills from. We
finished of some filming and began editing to have our would like to thank everyone who voted for our video and
video fully completed and submitted by the Friday of that most of all to Ms Dennigan who kindly agreed to help us
week. Editing was a difficult process trying to break it down participate in the competition. Also, for all her dedication,
to 3 minutes with the added pressure of having so little time. motivation, time and support throughout the project.

We finally got our video submitted successfully; it was then
time to wait for the results to see if we got into the top 30 By: Sara Whitley
videos of the national competition. To our delight we got

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