Aoibheann Mangan and Padraic Godwin from Hollymount who are primary school students in Cloghan’s Hill National School were both honoured for their efforts in raising awareness in farm safety for children and adults at the 41st People of the Year Awards on Saturday evening last where they were announced as the as joint winners of the Young Person of the Year Award.
They created and designed a farm safety website for children - www.farmsafety4kids.net Pupils from the Cloghan’s Hill National School, a 12-pupil school on the Mayo-Galway border, they undertook a third class English project where pupils designed websites. The fatality rate in agriculture is far higher than any other economic sector. Of the 193 people killed on Irish farms between 2005 and 2014, 22 were children. Padraic and Aoibheann felt that children needed farm safety messages that were aimed directly at them, not at adults. They made sure the website had child-friendly information on animals, tractor and water safety, with a range of videos and games. From that they emailed, tweeted and blogged about the site, leading it to appear on the news on RTÉ, UTV, and TG4.
