"Shona.ie" workshops for 2nd and 3rd years

The Shona Project involves a group of people who travel the country doing workshops, events and using their website to educate people and tell young women’s stories. They give advise on many issues, such as anxiety, depression, bullying, body image,  school stress and the pressures of social media. They often work with girls in sport when it comes to body image, helping people realise the good effects sport can have on women’s body image and confidence. They do talks and workshops for male, female and mixed schools but focus mostly on females.

On their website (Shona.ie), they share stories about many young girls who faced a variety of different issues and who still managed to pull through, despite what they may have been facing. They also share news and stories about influential celebrities such as Michelle Obama. Tonight the website is up for an Irish blog award.

One section of Shona.ie tells us more about Tammy’s story and why she set up The Shona Project. This week she shared her inspirational story with the girls. It is called The Shona Project after Tammy’s sister. Tammy and her sister Shona, who is one year older than Tammy, grew up in Waterford. When Shona was 15 she took a bad fall off her bike. Over the next few weeks she noticed a deterioration in her balance and after about three weeks she found herself almost completely unable to walk. After the doctors found a tumour on her brain, she was given 6 months to live, however she is still alive today but unfortunately is currently in a nursing home.

This sadly was not the end of Tammy’s misfortune, as in the same year her parents separated. Her downfall continued when she started getting bullied in school by an old friend. The bullying was so severe that she found herself hiding in a toilet cubicle at lunch times and she dropped from straight As in school to fails. She stopped trusting others, including her friends and she even became a bully herself. As she said, “hurt people hurt people.”

As she got older things continued to go downhill, but she turned it around when she set up the Shona project. She named it after Shona because she seemed invisible, but now she’s very much visible. She is now working her dream job working with The Shona Project.

Tammy, as she grew older, began to realise why people bullied, why she was bullied, why she herself bullied. She went in search for her bully, but after failing to come in contact with her, she went in search of the girl she bullied and apologised to her, an inspiration for us all. She tells the girls that bullies are powerless people who want to feel powerful. She gives the girls advise on how to stop bullying- how to stop giving them the power.

After giving some inspiration to the girls with her story, she let them all fill out anonymous sheets with a promise and an apology and read some out afterwards, spreading the message that everyone has something to be sorry for and someone to be sorry to, but there’s usually a way to fix it.

After her own story she explained that nobody’s life is perfect, using a line as a metaphor- Nobody’s life is a straight line, it’s full of loops and curves. She continued by showing some inspirational videos from Will Smith and Prince Ea.

I’m so glad I got the opportunity to attend this talk, and everybody definitely earned something from it, including myself. A huge thank you to Tammy for taking the time out of her day to come in and talk to the girls.