EREBB Europe #Useyourvoice Award

At the beginning of March staff from ERST Ireland and ERST NI presented the inaugural  Edmund
Rice Education Beyond Borders Europe (EREBB Europe), ‘Use your voice’ award at the Cork Life
Centre.

This award recognises excellence in advocacy in the Edmund Rice Europe community and the
recipients receive both a perpetual trophy and a €500 donation towards their future advocacy work.

In the inaugural year 2 participants were recognised:

Don O’Leary, the Director of the Cork Life Centre, a voluntary organisation set up to offer an
alternative learning environment to young people who find themselves outside the mainstream
secondary education system. Don has led this community of learning since 2006 and helped Darragh
and others to find and use their voice. He is an activist with a commitment to system reform and
services that meet the needs of all children and young people and to working towards a
society where no one is left behind.

Darragh Cotter a past student of the Cork life centre who had a pivotal role in advocating for action
on Climate Change as a founding member of Cork’s Fridays for Future Movement. Darragh was also
part of an alternative summer school programme in Denmark involving research and co-authoring of
a paper defining alternative education-the first of its kind in Ireland or Europe.  Darragh has
presented to our Edmund Rice Students at our Walk in my Shoes events and has never failed to
impress and bring others along on his cause.

The event was streamed on Facebook. Well done to two very deserving awardees.