Gaisce

When I was in 5th year I signed myself up to do Gaisce. Basically it's the Presidents Award and all you have to is five simple tasks:
1) Do 13 weeks of community work.
2) Do 13 personal work
3) Do 13 weeks of physical work
4) Do an extra 13 weeks in one of these areas.

And the last and final task all 50 of the students who signed up had to go on a hike.... Up a mountain !!
That was the part I was dreading. We had to hike up the Wicklow Mountains.

The challenges were great. I did dancing as my physical, Sign Language for my personal and helping out at a club on a Tuesday night for children with Special Needs as my community work.
I had a great time working in all of these areas and I did my extra 13 weeks with the special needs kids.
This Gaisce experience thought me alot about myself and others around me. People who know me say that they saw a big change in me when I was in 5th year ... Maybe that's because I wasn't out on the town the whole time. But I was told that I don't seem as cheeky as I used to be. Doing all of these challenges thought myself and everyone involved to think of others and to help out the elderly or disabled more often.

The mountain hike was the best time of my life! Now I can officially say that I was on top of a mountain looking down on everything... Well not really I didn't get time the winds were too strong and we all just wanted to get on our bus home. We hiked for 2 days and we stayed in a youth hostel so we weren't walking during the night. I would encourage everyone to do the Gaisce award because it's very fulfilling and it teaches you alot about yourself and you might even get a volunteering job out of it like I did!