Young citizens making a difference during the pandemic are honoured

Young citizens making a difference during the pandemic are honoured

By Aimee Walsh

STUDENTS from two local secondary schools have won awards recognising their important work at the Lord Mayor Youth Awards.

Lord Mayor Hazel Chu hosted the virtual event on April 29 which celebrated the young citizens in Dublin who made a difference to their families, schools or communities during the pandemic.

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Sharkira Donohue, from St Dominic’s College

Five of the awards were presented to young adults from secondary schools, including Grace Ellis Hegarty from Kingswood Community College in Tallaght and Shakira Donoghue from St Dominic’s College in Ballyfermot.

Grace Ennis Hegarty is a transition year student in Kingswood Community College.

As reported in The Echo previously, Grace decided to take the brave decision to chop 17 inches off her hair to raise money for the Laura Lynn Foundation as well as donating the hair to the Rapunzel Foundation, which helps improve the lives of those living with hair loss.

Grace was joined by her family during the awards ceremony and told the Lord Mayor that she had raised over €2,000 for the Laura Lynn Foundation.

Mayor Chu commended Grace on her fundraiser, saying: “That’s a lot of money, incredible work and fair play to you.”

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Grace Ellis Hegarty

Shakira Donohue, a 6th year Leaving Cert student from St Dominic’s College in Ballyfermot also took home the prestigious award.

Shakira acts as the senior leader of the wellbeing team for the school and provides leadership and peer support to younger students.

She also promotes positive mental health and positivity, including reading wellbeing tips and an inspirational quote over the school’s intercom on a Friday afternoon.

In addition to this, Shakira also co-ordinated the donation and collection of items for care packages at Christmas for the homeless and liaised with her local outreach team to distribute the care packs to the homeless with a personal Christmas card that said “Everybody is a somebody”.

At the virtual award ceremony, Shakira said that the last year has been “very hard”, but she will continue to promote positivity within her school.

The Lord Mayor announced that the awards had received 124 nominations in total for young people across Dublin.

Mayor Chu said: “It has been heart-warming to see so many young people putting others before themselves.

“The calibre of the nominations was so high, all of which were so deserving, and I hope that this experience will inspire them and others to continue to spread love and positivity as they move forward in their lives”.

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