Transition year Students in Castleisland Community College, Kerry were crowned winners of the Young Social Innovators 2024 for their skin cancer awareness project called the ‘Sun Smarties’.
The students were drawn to this project because skin cancer is the most common cancer in Ireland, with over 11,000 new cases diagnosed every year. The Transition year learned this from the Marie Keating Foundation who completed educations sessions with the students. Skin cancer rates concerned them and they felt that education about skin cancer at a young age is key for prevention.
Teacher, Elaine Murphy said “Sun Protection measures is also linked to the Sustainable Development Goals for example Good Health and Well-being: By educating young children about being “sun smart,” we can help reduce their risk of developing skin cancer later in life and contributing to the overall goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all”
Collaborating with the HSE’s Health Promotion Officers for Cancer Prevention, the school designed a four-step programme for other schools to follow to become a sun safe school and are working with the HSE and the National Cancer Control Programme to become Ireland’s pilot school for their Sun Safe Programme. This included research with the whole school community, raising awareness through lesson plans and developing a sun smart charter.
Following their win, the school hopes to continue the project into the future leading other schools in becoming ‘sun smart’. Senior Health Promotion Officer for Cancer Prevention Shirley O’Shea was very impressed with the level of knowledge and research the students had carried out on skin cancer awareness, “the project is really innovative and provides other schools with a model to implement into their own school based on very practical measures”
Click here to watch the Young Social Innovators 2024 highlights
For more information about the project contact Senior Health Promotion Officer for Cancer Prevention Shirley O’Shea, [email protected]