Small students take on big issues

SOME are too young to go to the corner shop by themselves but that didn’t stop the entrants to a unique schools’ competition exploring the wide world to examine some weighty global issues.

Poverty, disease, illiteracy, environmental damage — as the projects submitted to the Our World Children’s Media Awards demonstrate — no problem is too big for even the smallest students to tackle.

The awards were devised to raise awareness among primary and special school pupils of the work that Irish Aid funds and supports in poor countries in Africa and throughout the rest of the developing world on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the people of Ireland.

In preparing their entries, pupils were also introduced to the Millennium Development Goals which richer countries promised during the millennium year of 2000 to try to help developing countries achieve by the year 2015.

Through written projects, paintings, sculptures, photography and audio/visual displays, classes explored what is being done to meet key goals such as ridding the world of extreme poverty and hunger, providing education for all, improving general health and tackling diseases like malaria that often go hand in hand with poverty.

Now in its second year and supported by the Irish Examiner, the Our World Children’s Media Awards attracted 2,148 entries from about 12,000 pupils aged 8 to 13 in 233 schools across the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Every county on the island was represented and the entries show a strong understanding by the children of the very complex issues involved in working with developing countries as well as demonstrating an imaginative and resourceful approach to problem solving.

The next task for the judging panel is to select the overall winners in each category. These will be announced at an awards ceremony this spring to which all the short-listed entrants will be invited and the final results will be carried in the Irish Examiner.