Swap Shop success story as St Cecilia's College Environmental Group win prestigious ECO UNESCO Young Environmentalist Award

St Cecilia's College Environmental Group scooped the prestigious ECO UNESCO Young Environmentalist Award for their waste reduction efforts, in Dublin this week. The judges were impressed with their clothing swap shop initiative and announced to over 100 schools at the final showcase that each school should follow suit! Their teacher Ms Rainey is immensely proud of all their work on the project and how they are excellent environmental role models for Derry.

The idea behind the swap shop is to reduce the waste of textiles, clothes, shoes and accessories.

It works on a no money exchange basis. Instead students are encouraged to bring in clothes and swap with other students, reducing waste going to landfills.

Leading the environmentalist group is geography teacher Ms. Rainey she has this to say about their success: “It was a great experience for the pupils from start to finish. We stayed in Dublin on Tuesday night, visited the infamous Portal and enjoyed the buzz of the capital city. On Wednesday we attended the finals in the Royal Dublin Convention centre. There were over 100 schools there from all over Ireland exhibiting their environmental projects. Our pupils set up their "Swap with Style" display and were visited by judges. There were workshops and performances throughout the day on environmental topics, with Katie and Dara even getting up on stage to discuss their waste reduction efforts at St Cecilia's College. We were so shocked when we were announced as the winners of the Waste category! I'm so proud of the team for being acknowledged, nationally, for all their dedication and we hope that other schools can follow suit in hosting swap shops each term like us.”

Explaining what her club is all about she said “the environmental group is all about recycling our plastic and paper but then we decided to enter a competition and reduce textile waste as well.”

“Every week they collect the recyclable materials from the bins in each classroom. We could have 40 to 50 bags per week of waste that would otherwise go to landfill. By handpicking out the recyclable waste we have reduced so much going to landfill.”

A student part of the club had this to say: "It was such a fun experience for us. It was great getting to see all the other projects and chat with other pupils from around Ireland. We were so nervous at the start, especially when talking to the judges but then we became more relaxed.”

Another Student Erin commented: “It was such a fun experience for us. It was great getting to see all the other projects and chat with other pupils from around Ireland. We were so nervous at the start, especially when talking to the judges but then we became more relaxed.”

Ms. Rainey spoke of her pride in her students, saying: “I am so proud, people don’t see the work they do behind the scenes, every Wednesday for an hour after school they’d literally roll their sleeves up and and go through rubbish bins, ensuring that it was only recyclable materials, people don’t see that hard work but they are so dedicated.”