Youth award for teenager who helped search for Tit Bonhomme

A young Skibbereen man who spent 20 days helping in the land and sea search for the Tit Bonhomme trawler off Union Hall has been named as one of the overall winners of the West Cork Garda Youth Awards.

Peter Losberg has been an active member of the civil defence since 2009, completing courses in CPR, first aid, and power boating and was an integral part of a civil defence team which rescued a woman who had been missing in Long Strand.

The 18-year-old, who is also a member of Baltimore Lifeboat, has also dedicated a large chunk of his time to fundraising for causes such as Trócaire, the Simon community, Special Olympics, and CoAction.

Bernadette O’Driscoll, 16, from Leap was also presented with an overall award at last night’s ceremony in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery. She was a lead member of “Citizen Project” in her local Foróige club which was involved in the restoration of Leap playground. She also helped to organise a charity walk in aid of the Union Hall fishing tragedy bereaved. There were 17 awards, 15 individual and two group presented at last night’s event.

Fiona Cotter from Schull has ensured that cerebral palsy has not stopped her from making a valued contribution to the community, whether she’s creating links with the elderly, campaigning on suicide. The 18-year-old, who will sit the Leaving Certificate next June, even spoke about her disability at the Munster Young Social Innovator Conference in Cork. Last night she was presented with a district award.

Among the group awards was the Bandon scout group which raised €20,000 to enable them to travel to Botswana to carry out humanitarian work for orphans and parents affected by HIV. While there they built a playground for children, painted murals on the walls of the school and visited hospices.

This year, 137 young people were nominated for the West Cork garda youth awards.

Inspector Brendan Fogarty of Bandon garda station, who was chairman of the judging committee, spoke of the admiration the committee had for the sacrifices made by young people in aid of their communities and beyond.

“The award winners are truly worthy, but the standard of nominations in general was at a very high level,” he said.