Mr. Darragh Rawson:

During our initial classes, our teacher helped us list issues that were affecting young people. We did many exercises to explore these issues and it was truly shocking to see how many problems and obstacles exist for young people in Ireland in 2022. As we quickly learned, listing the issues that exist was not difficult. Our challenge was finding a topic all 22 students were interested in and passionate about. Our breakthrough came just before Christmas, when our teacher shared an article with us about body shaming and comparison culture.

The article explained how the American artist, Lizzo, had recently worn a sheer dress to an awards ceremony and, as a plus size woman, had been roundly criticised online. She is a talented artist who won awards at this particular ceremony, but none of the articles mentioned this fact. They focused solely on how she looked. Her talent and professional achievements faded into the background and all that people wanted to discuss was her choice of clothing. Interestingly, Rihanna had worn a similar dress previously and was widely applauded for her fashion choice. A class discussion started; we had found our passion.