It's Your Right: Sean Fitzgerald (13) - Life in Ballymun and Aisling
Sean Fitzgerald (13), has been attending the Aisling Project since he was in primary school. He talks about life in Ballymun, and addresses the opinion that people have about the area. He tells us about the activities they do in the Aisling centre, and what he has learned during his time there. He knows the Aisling centre is a safe environment for him to go to whenever he needs help with any part of his life.
Accompanying Music: 'Sam' by Michael Gallen, Mark Gavin and Robert Hope
© West Pole Music and Management Ltd.
The Aisling Project, primarily aimed at young people aged 8 to 13, work to prevent early school leaving, benefit the community and advance education by running an after-school intervention project for children at risk.
http://www.aislingproject.com/
For more information on children's rights or the 'It's Your Right' campaign, visit the It's Your right website:
http://itsyourright.ie/
Transcript below
00:00 - 00:07 - Music.
00:07 - (Music continues in background.) Seán: Me name is Seán Fitzgerald. I’m 13 years old and I live in Ballymun.
00:12 - Music fades up.
00:14 - Seán: Some people say bad stuff about Ballymun that doesn’t live in Ballymun. Maybe all like, because, you always see people doing drugs or selling drugs. But, if they grew up in Ballymun and knew what it’s like and knew all the people there, most of them would probably change their answers.
00:32 - Music 00:34 - Seán: Been going to the Aisling about a year, well this one, there’s one next door which I’m going to since about 3rd class so about 8 years.
00:41 - Music 00:44 - Seán: We sit here, do our homework, do activities, like on Mondays we might go like sports, Tuesdays we do something else and Thursdays we do, like, rap and dancing. Like we did frisbee and a couple of other things, but, so far I’d like the football.
01:03 - Music
01:05 - Seán: Like I’ve learned that if you’re annoyed, we can come here and ask Tim to help us out. If I was going the wrong direction, they’d point me in the right direction. They’d say, “Well why are you doing this when you should be doing that?” And if, say we were doing something in school, like a project, they’d help us out. I have someone, if I need help, I have help there for me. That’s what I feel like.
01:35 - Music. Fade out
01:51 - END