Eyes open hands out – Mercy Secondary School

Why as a team did you choose to focus on this challenge?

We choose to focus on this challenge because we believe there are many ways it could be solved. We all believe that displaced people face many problems and need more help. We would love to put our minds to work and create an idea to support displaced people. Out of all the topics this was the one that grabbed our attention and interest. We want to work as a team and develop a reasonable solution to give aid to displaced people and prevent any hate or trouble that may come their way living in an environment that isn’t their home.

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What do you know now about the challenge that you didn't know before?

We have learnt lots of new information about displaced people such as, the official definition of displaced people. We learnt that displaced people suffer significantly higher rates of mortality than the general population. We also learnt that the majority of displaced people are women and children who are at risk of abuse of their basic rights. We also learnt that displaced people are at high risk of physical attack, sexual assault and abduction and frequently are deprived of shelter, food and health services. We have also learnt displaced people’s human rights.

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What have you learnt about your Hero?

Our hero is Marcus Rashford, we chose him because he is a very inspiring person and is a great role model. During covid many children in England were left with no free school meals, he demanded every school pupil in England should be guaranteed one meal per day. The government pledge £400 million to provide meals for kids in England year round. Around 1.7 million children’s lives were improved na use of Marcus Rashford. These meals were also provided for displaced children who are living in England. More people should stand up for essential needs for people like displaced people.

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If you could improve one thing for your Hero what would that be?

If we could improve one thing for our hero it would be more credit given to him from the public and more countries following in his footsteps and taking inspiration from him to support people in need of it such as displaced people. We think more support and followers would help Marcus Rashford make even more change in the world, for ordinary people and displaced people.

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Do you have any ideas for a potential solution? No matter how raw, share them with your Mentors for feedback.

We have a rough idea to to set up an app which will send money to displaced people in you area and different counties in Ireland. It will track the rate of displaced people in the different local areas across Ireland and give locations of the areas that need help. The app will also shared the location of your nearest homeless shelter and where you can donate money for displaced people. The app will will also set up voluntary community groups to collect food and clothes to help displaced people. A map will be used to display all this.

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Ask your Mentor anything …. This is a chance to ask your Mentors a direct question relating to your Big Idea.

Do you have any ideas that will improve our idea or anything you would change about it? Our idea is unique but we want to develop it more