Debates champions visit Haiti
Debate it! Blog Thursday, 23 August 2007
The Debates National Champions, from Athlone Community College, along with students from Glenamaddy Community School, who took part in the Concern Fast last November, travelled to Haiti, via New York for 10 days in late June. Joanne Rea, of the Concern Debates team, reports.
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The trip was a unique chance for the students and their teachers to see the impact of Concern’s work in Haiti, a country which is working hard to overthrow its image as “the poorest country in the Western hemisphere”.
Francis Dowling, Caoimhe Kenny and Nollaig Ó Scannláin from the Athlone Community College debating team were accompanied by their Vice-principal Eileen Donohoe. While Glenamaddy teacher Mairín Uí Cheallaigh travelled with Emma Heverin and Leigh-Anne Pye who participated in the Concern Fast. From start to finish the trip was a great learning experience. According to Emma Heverin of Glenamaddy, stopping off in New York “gave us a sneak preview of what Ireland will be like if the Celtic tiger spirals out of control…and then we went to Haiti where we set our watches back another hour and it seemed as if we turned the clock back a couple of decades”.
The first few days were spent in Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, which is renowned for its volatile and poverty-stricken slums. Concern works with a local organisation KDSM, improving the environment in the St Martin district of the city. The students had a chance to see the waste management project which employs local people in street cleaning and area rejuvenation. Also, the conflict resolution project which aims to get local gangs talking and working together instead of fighting over scarce resources and a teacher training project which provides in-service education for teachers on health education. They were lucky enough to catch an impromptu Ra-Ra (music performance) by local people and joined in a street procession around the area.
Travelling on to Saut d’Eau, a rural area, the group visited an irrigation project, a maternity health clinic and a number of local schools that Concern is assisting. The students and teachers got firsthand experience of real life in Haiti staying for three nights with local families. For the duration of the trip the group were twinned with Haitian students and teachers which gave them a great chance to get to know the Haitian people, and learn about Haitian culture and the Creole language.
All the students were looking forward to telling people about their experiences. “When we return to school in September we hope to do a presentation for the student body and display our pictures, we then later hope to hold a non-uniform day to raise money for Concern Haiti. We will also contact the local papers who have agreed to do an article on our trip,” said Caoimhe Kenny of Athlone.
The trip has changed their attitudes to the developing world, and reinforced everything that they learnt during their year debating. Francis Dowling of Athlone noted, “Prior to this trip my opinions were solely based on the information provided by the media. Yet it is now obvious that the media reports only what they want the world to see and that the old phrase 'bad news is good news' is definitely what the media believe. There is much more to third world countries than poverty, starvation and terrorism.”
If that has whetted your appetite, then you are in luck! Preparations are well under way for the 2007/08 Concern Debates. The final date for registering your school team is 19 September, and more information on taking part will appear here soon.
