Batt joins pupils roughing it to highlight poverty
Thursday March 04 2010
TWENTY two Transition Year students and seven teachers from Millstreet Community School braved the freezing cold and took part in a 'sleep out' overnight this week at the doors of St Patrick's Church, Millstreet to support Trocaire's Lenten campaign on hunger.
From Monday 7pm to 7am Tuesday they were visited by members of the community, friends and families. And Minister for Education Mr Batt O'Keeffe spent an hour with the participants in response to letter of invitation from students Deirdre McAuliffe and Catriona Kelleher.
The aim of the sleep-out was to highlight world hunger and the poor living conditions faced by people struggling to survive, while raising money for Trocaire's work.
And to make the sleep-out as challenging as possible they left mobile phones, ipods and all forms of portable entertainment at home.
The students spoke about their project at local parishes over the previous weekend and to end the week off they will undergo a 24 hour fast this Friday, also for Trocaire.
