Video by teen’s classmates on ‘best advice’ goes viral
By Mary Dennehy
THE inspiring and honest story of a teenager who has not allowed speech and language difficulties to define him has struck a chord with thousands, after a short video made by his classmates went viral.
Karl Reddy is a transition-year student in St Colmcille’s Community School in Knocklyon, a member of Ballyboden St Enda’s GAA club on the Firhouse Road and the focus of a touching, thought-provoking and captivating video that has, in less than a week, received 15,000 views online.
What is moving about the video is that Karl’s story has been beautifully captured by four of his peers, who, alongside Karl, made the three-minute and 46-second video as part of their course work in multi-media.
Called In My Own Words, the video was inspired by an essay Karl wrote last year for English class, when students were asked to pen an essay on the best advice they were ever given.
When Karl’s four multi-media team-mates read the essay, they were so moved by the piece that it was chosen as the focus of their video project.
Andrew Bates, the multi-media teacher, told The Echo: “The team worked so hard on this video – they spent four months getting it right and kept saying to Karl that if at any point the video stopped being his story, to let them know.
“The past four months were spent seizing moments to accompany Karl reading the essay, and some of the best moments were unplanned – like one day a fog descended over the school and the team were out on the pitches with Karl shooting straight away.”
He added: “The video has so many elements to it – anybody of any age can relate to it and be inspired.
“Karl is so honest in the telling of his story and, alongside his moving account, the video also shows the importance of sports, talking your problems through and believing in yourself.
“It’s great to see the video inspiring so many and having such an impact.”
The atmospheric and artistic video, which features shots from the Hellfire Club, St Colmcille’s and Croke Park, was created by Karl and his team mates James Matthews, Aoife Durkan, Holly McDermott and Sinéad Giblin.
In the video, Karl talks about how he spent a lot of time on his own due to his speech and language issues, turning to sport and investing his time and energy into hurling.
However, after his parents noticed that he was unhappy, his mam sat him down and in Karl’s words said: “[My mam] explained to me that I was just as good and just as equal as everybody else.
“Everybody has his or her special talent, whether it is intelligence, or sports, or creative, it’s all valuable.
“The best advice I have ever been given is that regardless of my talents or my shortcomings that I am as good as anybody else – it’s the extra bit of kindness or compassion that makes us a little bit better.”
Watch the video here>>>
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