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Our Chosen ChallengeChallenge 3 – Hidden Poverty
Category
Service
St Mogues College, Bawnboy, Belturbet Co. Cavan
Teacher
Tina Dolan
Team Members
Leah McManus Aisling Bennett Zara Breiden
Why as a team did you choose to focus on this challenge?
As a team we chose this idea because we’ve all experienced not having a device in school due to it being broken, away getting fixed, forgotten at home etc. This led to us often getting given out to and caused us to fall behind on work as we weren’t able to access teams.We also chose this idea for students who can’t afford to fix broken devices or buy a new one due to hidden poverty. We wanted to change this for other students so they would have access to a device in the school, the same as everyone elses.
What do you know now about the challenge that you didn't know before?
We now know that other schools offer this service. We know that not having a device affects many students as they’re often given out to for something they can’t help.
What have you learnt about your Hero?
Our hero is every student in the school. Students who can’t finically afford a device, students who can’t go home and ask for money for devices. The challenge they face is coming into school without a device, they may feel judged because everyone else is able to afford devices. Not having a device can cause hem to fall behind on schoolwork. We are a technology-based school. All students are asked to have a device when entering the school in first year. Not everyone can afford brand new devices on top of the costs of uniforms, stationery etc.
If you could improve one thing for your Hero what would that be?
We want to improve the support given to students who find it difficult financially to purchase devices for school. For students who have broken their device, waiting for it to get fixed, forgotten it at home etc.
Do you have any ideas for a potential solution? No matter how raw, share them with your Mentors for feedback.
The solution we came up with as a team would be to set up a service in the school where there would be access to devices if they don’t have one for some reason. We want to have approximately 10 devices for students to borrow so they can keep up with school work and assignments on teams. We want to keep them the same devices that every other student in the school uses so they don’t feel different.
Ask your Mentor anything …. This is a chance to ask your Mentors a direct question relating to your Big Idea.
How would we go about funding