St Augustine Youth Encounter Project wins Endeavour Award

Richard Lynch with students Luke Foran, Jaden Collins, Chloe Collins, Raymond Collins, Megan Ring, Dillon Collins and their teacher Maeve Lynch. Picture: Jonathan Baynes/ilovelimerick. Article By Richard Lynch

At Limerick Going for Gold 2015, Endeavour Awards of €1,000 were presented St Augustine Youth Encounter Project, Limerick Youth Services, and the Mill Road, Corbally to encourage and support ongoing work on the environment.

St. Augustine’s School, located on Sexton Street is one of five Youth Encounter Project schools in Ireland and was established in 1977. Andrew O’Byrne is the principal and the school provides an alternative model of education. They cover Junior Certificate & Junior Cert Schools Programme and study Maths, English, Woodwork, ICT, Irish Culture and Sports.

Students are provided with opportunities to become more involved with their own learning. Students can build up their own profile by completing targets and statements with their teachers. Students get an official certificate of their achievements validated by the department of Education and Science. They also participate in a range of other programmes such as the Student Enterprise Awards, Fresh Film Festival, Make A Book.

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My sister Maeve Lynch teaches at the schoold for many years and she is one of the greatest inspirations in my life and makes a difference in the lives of every young person who comes through the doors of the school. Many years ago I had an oppurtunity to shoot a documentary with the students at the school called “Lables are for Jars” and it was a life changing experince for me.

As part of the academic year 2014- 2015, students used their own initiative and got out there once a week as part of a community development programme aided my sister Maeve and Gerry O Connell from the South Limerick City Residents Association. They picked up litter, worked in the local parish church over Christmas preparing the crib and made Christmas craft gifts and did gardening for the local elderly. They will be planting flowers coming into spring and will continue the programme into 2016. My sister Maeve is beyond proud of what her pupils achieved on behalf of the community telling me, “the experience has been great for the pupils as they learned the importance of respecting your environment and that small steps make a difference as they lead to big things. Winning an Endeavour Award on behalf of our school this year shows that hard work pays off. We are all looking forward to taking part again this coming year.”

Congratulations to my sister Maeve and all the students. Love Richard x

Check out the St Augustine School website here.

Read more about Limerick Going for Gold 2015 here.

Watch the “Labels Are For Jars” documentaries below.