Katie McArdle, a student of Greenhills College Drogheda and Inez Murray, Loretto Grammar School Newry, will travel to Strasbourg on a six day team building trip sponsored by Rotary In Ireland. They are joint winners in the the regional finals of Rotary Youth Leadership Development Competition 2019 that was held in Drogheda recently.
Participants partake in a selection process from their individual school through local interviews to the six Rotary District finals.
Richard Schmidt said “this is a marvellous opportunity for the winners to experience the European Parliament at first hand, make new friends and open their eyes to the big European issues”.
This exciting six day team building trip begins in Belfast where they have a visit to The Titanic Centre, a tour of Stormont and meet with local politicians and business leaders. They then travel to Dublin where they are invited to an information seminar and lunch hosted by the Staff of the European Parliament offices. This is followed by a tour of Dail Eireann and further meetings with politicians. Next they fly to Strasbourg and prepare for the highlight of the trip which is a full day of debating a variety of motions at Euroscola at the European Parliament in Strasbourg along with about five hundred other students from all over Europe. On the last day they have some time out for a sightseeing trip around Strasbourg before they fly back to Dublin.
Five senior secondary students presented for interview, Katie McArdle, Weronika Staszak, Aoife Murphy, Inez Murray and Aaron McMahon. They were sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Drogheda, Dundalk, Navan, Newry and Monaghan.
The adjudicators were Margaret Geraghty (Drogheda Soroptimist), Collette Farrell (Droichead Arts Centre), Ivan Bolton (Retired School Principal) and Kenny Fisher Assistant District Governor who oversaw proceedings, competition organiser Richard Schmidt. The two winners were Katie McArdle (Drogheda) and Inez Murray (Newry) . Katie and Inez will now join the other 22 winners on the trip to Europe next February.