Two buses filled with people, more cans of cheap beer then Father Jack’s bedroom and far too many clothes shoved into far too small bags, it HAS to be the Amnesty Intervarsity!Our big ‘ol gang of 72 university activists left Dublin heading for our weekend respite for fun, debauchery and training in Wicklow. Despite the craziest roads in all of Ireland hindering our journey slightly we all arrived in good time for dinner. After a much needed bite to eat “The Don” himself, Mr. Colm O’Gorman arrived to give us an opening speech. Colm’s speech left people with two distinct feelings, awe and invigoration. We then joined in a quick round of speed friendship (basically speed dating, just without the dodgy weirdo trying to buy you a drink afterwards) our questions were read out by the bearded legend that is Bart Storan and delegates were given 2 minutes to answer the questions. We then retired to our boudoirs to get ready for the night, which I can assure you, was filled with tasteful fun, classical music and
had a standard of morality unmatched by any other organisation.....The next morning, with our intentions unhindered by the groggy, sleep deprived heads that emerged from each room we soldiered on through the day and each talk, delivered excellently by our crack team of you activists, Bart “I F**king love mornings!” Storan, Catherine “are you starting?” Sherlock, Mary “Don’t criticise me, I don’t like it” Quinn and the masterful Sheelan “Ridiculously organised” Yousefizadeh. Overall the workshops went fantastically. That night after some lovely dinner our guest of honour, Senator David Norris (we couldn’t believe it either!) delivered a fantastic speech, speaking about architecture, the early Irish gay scene, his dislike for our founder Sean Macbride and also his
time in Tibet.
The next morning a workshop delivered by Ciaran “Did you know I’m a big deal?” O’Carrol, informed the delegates of the human rights violations being implemented on the Roma people. We then worked together and used our new found activist skills to develop a flashmob that we would perform in Dublin in front of The Central Bank. We designed posters for the flashmob and created petitions before all hopping on the buses and heading to the capital. In Dublin we performed our action and had four pages of our petitions signed.
All of us in both the Youth Action Team and the Youth Management Team would like to thank all the delegates for their dedication and support to becoming better, more efficient activists and for taking action to implement serious change in the world.
Peace,
Phil Dalton
Got any Blogs? Send them to Philip.Dalton5@Gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment