Celebrating inclusion at Beneavin College

Beneavin De La Salle College, along with schools across the country celebrated Stand Up Awareness Week from October 3rd to 7th. This is a very important week where we celebrate diversity, promote inclusion and kindness. At Beneavin De La Salle College we are committed to ensuring every member of the school community feels safe, valued, supported and that they can be themselves.

The Equality group meets every Monday with Ms Baird and have been planning for this week since August. This club is for LGBTQ+ students, allies and friends. They co-ordinated many of the activities over the course of the week. They spent Monday decorating the whole school with flags and bunting, information about LGBTQ+ history in Ireland and abroad, as well as key terms and creating displays along the corridors. The group also co-ordinated a quiz and treasure hunts for first years.  

We were delighted to have David Gough, Gaelic Football Referee, with us on Tuesday, who spoke to Transition Years and 5th years as well as a guest from Finglas Youth Resource Centre who facilitated workshops with 2nd years and transition years.  Third years, Transition Years and Fifth years also attended screenings of Love Simon with thanks to BelongTo and IFI.

There were also a number of art workshops facilitated by Ms Staniford. The TALK Mental Health group did an amazing portrait workshop and 6th years and a select group of students did felt workshops.  To finish off the week we had Rainbow Day when students and staff wore the colours of the PRIDE FLAG.

Stand Up Awareness Week is part of the wider Beneavin Connects Project which we launched in October.  This is an inclusion project aimed at building on our identity as an inclusive school, in particular for the vulnerable and marginalised and to actively promote inclusivity of all cultures and ethnicities, celebrate diversity and challenge racism and discrimination.