May Award for Mizen Rovers Underage Gaa Club

Winners of the FBD Farm Safety “Champions for Change” Community Award

The May winners of the Rebel Óg Monthly Awards for 2016 sponsored by the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs, Cummins Sports (Award Sponsors) with RedFM and Irish Examiner Media Partners are MIZEN ROVERS GAA CLUB. They follow the January, February, March and April 2016 winners Mitchelstown CBS, Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál Blarney, Kilmurry Footballers and Buttevant Underage GAA Club plus 2015 winners, Ahán Gaels, Midleton U15 Footballers, Cork’s Eimear Scally, Aghabullogue U16 Hurlers, Cork U15 Development Squad, Douglas U14 Footballers, St. Finbarrs U14 Hurlers, Christian Brothers Cork, Coláiste Chríost Rí, Coláiste an Phiarsaigh (Camogie) Sacred Heart Clonakilty (Camogie) and Ilen Rovers.

FBD COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS FOR CHANGE HIGHLIGHT GAA’S ROLE IN FARM SAFETY AWARENESS

Mizen Rovers GAA Club named FBD’s 2016 Community Champions for Change Mizen Rovers GAA Club have been the named as FBD’s Community Champions for Change following a nationwide search as part of the FBD Champions for Change programme – a major national farm safety and awareness initiative.

The group which is focused on highlighting safety in their community is calling for the establishment of a dedicated farm safety organisation and believes that the GAA has a key role to play in increasing the awareness of farm safety. Connie O’Driscoll, Mizen Rovers GAA said, “We are absolutely delighted to be named FBD’s Champions for Change 2016 as we have worked long and hard to promote farm safety awareness in our community for the past number of years. “The GAA has such a strong influence in many parts of rural Ireland and the clubs are well positioned to help encourage this message of farm safety. We need to combine our resources to raise awareness and prevent the needless deaths that occur on Irish farms be that through existing channels or through a new, dedicated farm safety organisation, similar to the Road Safety Authority.” Training almost 100 children in the Mizen peninsula area, the group began in 2010 as a way to maintain club spirit and stay connected through the off season. They first launched a ‘Care for our Players’ campaign that focused on the areas of health, wellbeing, jobs and enterprise and road safety before taking on the issue of farm safety in 2014. They arranged a number of awareness activities for the local community including special tractor driving courses for young people and a ‘Farm Safety Pack’ for local primary schools which included high-vis vests and dedicated educational materials to teach children about farm safety. Connie O’Driscoll continued, “Farming, like GAA, plays a big role in the local community. In fact, we found that about nine out of ten of our club members were either living on farms or had family with farms locally. The GAA are community champions with an extensive network and we should be working together in order to reduce the risk.” Fiona Muldoon, CEO of FBD, said, “The aim of the awards was to recognise those people making a real contribution in the area of farm safety and to highlight the importance of the need to look out for one another in the community. What the Mizen Rovers GAA Club has done is to come up with a template for promoting the message, one that can be replicated at a national level and we are delighted to lend them our support.” As winners of FDB’s Community Champions for Change award, Mizen Rovers GAA Club will receive €1,000 which will go toward expanding their outreach beyond the local community and will be used for educational tools for schools such as farm safety books and games etc. Mizen Rovers GAA Club – Co. Cork (OVERALL WINNER) This under age GAA club has been at the forefront of highlighting safety in their community. Their projects over a number of years include highlighting road safety issues to pre-driving age adolescents with the assistance of local Driving Academy, keeping road safety topics highlighted in posters and signage around the club facilities, organising a 'Tractor Driving Skills' course for local farming teenagers pre-summer time 2014. Their current campaign is aimed at national school students with a 'Farm Safety Pack' being delivered to local schools - the pack includes Hi Viz vests, 'Champions for change' wristbands, farm safety board game, colouring sheets with cartoon style farm scene with various dangers to be identified and assorted other literature and items. This group have over several years sought ways to bring farm safety to the local community and have a template that many GAA clubs and other communities could replicate.