Carrignafoy Community College attended the I Wish event

On Thursday Feb 13th 10 Transition Year girls from Carrignafoy Community College attended the I Wish event at Fota Wildlife Park and City Hall in Cork. I Wish is a city and regional schools initiative to inspire women in STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Maths). The core objec tives of STEM are to inspire girls to investigate opportunities in STEM, show the next generation that girls do science too, influence subject choices for Leaving Certificate and provide role models for young women interested in STEM.

It was a very inspiring day for all the girls who attended. In the morning there was an exhibition of Cork’s leading entrepreneurs at Fota Wildlife Park. Experts in the fiels of STEM were onsight to offer students both their perspective ands insights as to the reality of working in the areas of Food Science, engineering as well as the field of ZEPS (Zoological, ecological and plant science). Fota Wildlife Park staff hosted a tour of the park where the students met and conversed with staff employed in areas such as animal husbandry , education, verterinary nursing , environmental science and technology.

In the afternoon they were transferred to Cork City Hall where they listened to very motivatinal speeches from very influential women such as Dr. Pixie McKenna (Channel 4), Mary Moloney (Global CEO, Coder Dojo), Gillian Keating(President, Cork Chamber), Valerie Cummins(Imerc) and Jen Meade (Arup). It is worth noting that all these women are from Cork and have been very successful in their respective fields. There was also an exhibition area where the girls were able to talk with employees from large companies including McAfee, Tyndall, KPMG, Imerc, ESB, PCH International, Coder Dojo,APC, UCC, CIT and many more.

Overall it was a fantastic event which I’m sure will inspire many of the girls to go on to work in the area of STEM.