Year 12 History student Niamh Cluett writes about an opportunity she and her classmates had to engage in local democracy.

I was chosen with Conor and Luc from my History class to enter a debating team raising issues about whether Newry and Mourne is an age friendly society – that is a society fit to involve and cater for all ages; elderly, young people etc.

We prepared a debate in favour of Newry and Mourne NOT being an Age Friendly Society. Conor Mckeown and Luc Hanna and I focused on the ways that Newry doesn’t promote inclusion of the elderly, doesn’t have many organised events for all ages, and other issues like heath services and anti-social crime statistics.

We spoke at the Town Hall in Newry along with many other schools, and our debate was against St Joseph’s High School, Crossmaglen, who spoke in favour of Newry being an Age Friendly Society.

At the end of the debate the other schools voted for who they thought had the better argument, and our team was successful and we were awarded a prize by the Mayor.

There was then a question and answer session between the schools and the council members where lots of topics were discussed and we got to hear how the local council is working towards helping the issues we raised in our debate, and also how and why they became council members; what inspired them to do what they do- which was quite interesting.

It was an interesting experience and as this event has been running 10 years I was glad to be involved. It gave me the insight to the running of local government and possible career within it.

I would like to thank Mr McArdle and the History department for the opportunity and helping us prepare for the debate.