Clare students dare to be more aware

THREE Clare students were among the winners at the dare2bdrinkaware.ie awards ceremony.
This is the fifth year of the film and multimedia competition for third level students, which takes place in association with the Digital Hub Development Agency. This year the competition challenged students to explore the theme of drinking in a home environment.
Audio Video Production students at LIT, Peter Moloney from Bridgetown and James Skerritt from Ennistymon, were at the gala awards with their team mates from Streal Productions, where they scooped the prize for Best Overall Film for their entry The House Party. Fellow LIT student, David Donnellan from Newmarket-on Fergus-was also in attendance with his team Flamboyantnunchucks, which won the People’s Choice award in the multimedia category for their online game-show How Drunk are You?
Speaking after the ceremony, Fionnuala Sheehan, chief executive of drinkaware.ie, said drinking in a home environment had been chosen as the theme as it is very relevant to students.
“We wanted to choose a theme that really resonated with students and that ofered them plenty of scope to be innovative and creative. We are used to seeing alcohol awareness campaigns that revolve around goings on in pubs or nightclubs. But home drinking now constitutes more than 50% of alcohol consumption in Ireland, up from 30% a few years ago, so it’s important to address this phenomenon too.
“Students, who are usually living off limited budgets, have always had a tendency to favour home drinking or to combine having a few drinks at home with a night out in the pub. They consider it cheaper to drink at home than to drink in a bar so we felt the theme of ‘drinking in a home environment’ would offer students plenty of scope to produce fresh, imaginative film and multimedia entries and we were proven right.”
The winning films, nominated films and multimedia projects from this year’s competition can be viewed at www.dare2bdrinkaware.ie.
At the awards ceremony, a panel discussion chaired by well-known broadcaster John Kelly took place with panellists Paddy Cosgrave and David Kerr.