A Tipperary based crime and disability awareness project has won a national award.
The ‘Inside Out’ booklet was honoured at this year’s Garda Youth Awards.
The project looked at the impact of crime on people with disabilities and older people and was a collaboration between the Gardaí, HSE, Transition Year students and Limerick Prison.
Seven anonymous victims of crime shared their experiences with 12 students from three secondary schools in Tipp Town.
Thirty women serving time in Limerick Prison also took part to help steer young people away from crime and offer another perspective to victims trying to understand what happened to them.
Work on the project included submissions made from project participants during the lockdown.
Tipperary County Council and Tipperary Age Friendly also backed the project and the TY students came from St. Ailbe’s, St. Anne’s and The Abbey schools in Tipperary Town.
The handbook also includes a contribution from solicitor Kate Fleming of the LawEd education group, explaining the Irish legal system and setting out a summary of crime awareness.
Speaking about the ‘Inside Out’ project and after RTE celebrity Marty Morrissey had presented a delegation from the project with their Garda Youth Award (at a ceremony in Portlaoise also addressed by boxer and Olympic gold medalist Kellie Harrington), Anne Bradshaw (HSE/South East Community Healthcare Disability Services Co-Ordinator, South Tipperary) said:
“As a project, ‘Inside Out’ came about due to growing concerns around the amount of people with disabilities and older people that have been victims of crime.
“We worked with some of these victims and then engaged women prisoners in Limerick.
“Our handbook recounts and explores the impact of crime on its victim’s lives.
“The women in Limerick Prison were invited to explore the issues that led them to crime and to highlight its negative effect on their lives.
“The women scripted a play, not offered as an explanation for committing crime but to illustrate the often chaotic and stressful lives some of them lead.
“We hope that working on this project has helped all of those involved in a positive way and that ultimately it will help to bring about a safer environment for us all to live in.”
