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Loreto students scoop enterprise award

Monday, 24 March 2008

SEVEN months of hard work paid off for Northside students at the annual Fingal Student Enterprise Awards that were held in the Grand Hotel, Malahide.
Five students from Loreto Convent, Swords, were presented with the top prize for their student enterprise, ‘Zero Tolerance’, which promotes awareness of the ‘size zero’ phenomenon through badges and keyrings, encouraging students to strive for a healthy body size.
The five Transition Year students - Clare O'Connell (managing director), Gemma Whelan (company secretary and human resource manager), Ciara Keogh (finance manager), Kerrie Harris (marketing and sales manager) and Sophie Marks (production manager) - came up with the concept of Zero Tolerance.
The quintet felt that teenagers, particularly girls, are inundated with inappropriate role models of unrealistically thin women, and that this contributes to the increase in eating disorders.
Clare O’Connell said: “There are many celebrity endorsements used successfully by manufacturers for a range of products to increase sales.
“As consumers, we associate the model with the product and we want what they are selling.
“However, the subconscious element of this is that celebrities with their skeletal frames, who are photographed, we feel, endorsing size zero.”

Clare added that in an effort to achieve this unrealistic and unhealthy goal, many young women are developing eating disorders.
“Our mini company has received the support of Bodywhys, the National Eating Disorder Association, and we promote their helpline numbers on the badges and keyrings,“ she stated.
Kerrie Harris believes the size zero phenomenon has “taken over the world”.
“As teenagers, this is a major concern in our lives and we believe that the blanket coverage that this issue has been getting is extremely unfair,” she said.
“We wish to show and share our concerns with others through our Zero Tolerance badges and keyrings.
“If you see someone with our badge or keyring you will know that they do not support size zero, and it will join a community of people who all have the same concerns, and explain that having a healthy, curvy body is great and being gaunt, sick and stick thin, isn’t.”
Runners-up in the Senior Category were ‘Connolly Cards’ from Blakestown Community College, which produced handmade Easter cards.
Coláiste Choilm from Swords, which runs the largest student enterprise programme in Fingal, walked away with four awards at the ceremony, with winning enterprises in both the Junior and Intermediate categories.
‘Locker Doctor’ won the Junior category and ‘Pic Sticks’ came runner-up, while in the Intermediate category, ‘Tools 4 School’ won the top award and ‘Stickers Supreme’ came second.
Since September, students have been setting-up and running their own enterprises as part of the Fingal Student Enterprise Programme.
They also had to prepare a business plan in advance before setting up an exhibition display stand at the final.
The students then faced questions about their enterprise experiences from a three-member judging panel that jointly decided the winners.
The winners from the Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories will now represent Fingal at the National Student Enterprise Awards in Tullamore, County Offaly, on May 8.
Later this year, the ‘Zero Tolerance’ team will fly to Barcelona as part of a three-day educational trip, thanks to Fingal County Council.
The Spanish town of El Prat de Llobregat, which is twinned with Fingal, will play host to the group of enterprising students and their teacher.
Organised by Fingal County Enterprise Board and supported by Fingal County Council, MACE and SMART Technologies, over 130 eager entrepreneurs from 11 secondary schools competed across the Junior, Intermediate and Senior categories.
Mayor of Fingal County Council, Cllr Alan Farrell, said the Loreto Swords winners presented a terrific business plan.
“I truly hope that the directors of the firm, the students themselves realise that this initiative that they have started does not stop with this award,” said Mayor Farrell.
“I would actively encourage them to continue the operations of this business to highlight the ongoing pressures on young women to be painfully thin, often leading to eating disorders and an unhealthy lifestyle.
“Their teacher Catriona Foley should also be commended for her terrific work along with the school’s principal.”

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