Quartet in final of ABP Youth Challenge

Quartet in final of ABP Youth Challenge

21 February 2024

FOUR students from St Colmcille’s High School in Crossgar are enjoying the hands-on experienced of rearing beef cattle.

Zara Mulern, Sarah Gilchrist, Scarlett Twomey and Zara Smyth have reached the final of the ABP Youth Challenge and are busy looking after a mini-herd of five Aberdeen Angus cattle.

With bills to pay, the girls recently organised an information evening in the school about sustainability in beef production, while also generating much-needed funds.

The girls were helped by Karanne McGrath, head of science at St Colmcille’s, their mentors, Sarah Morrison-Allen and Victoria Polly, and their parents. 

The guest speakers were John Yarr, from Castle Vets, Garth Boyd, from Fane Valley, local beef farmer Paul Turley and Arthur Callaghan, Stuart Cromie and Liam McCarthy, from ABP.

The night started off with a welcome from the principal of St Colmcille’s, Mr Seamus Hanna. Then the ABP team gave the audience a brief overview of the ABP Youth Challenge and shared a video to showcase the girls’ progress in the competition.

Mr Yarr provided an insight into the use of antibiotics in beef cattle, while Mr Turley, who has Aberdeen Angus and Wagyu cattle at his farm in Downpatrick, shared a farmer’s insight into the day-to-day practicalities of rearing cattle.

 The night concluded with an auction and raffle of prizes kindly donated by local farming businesses. The top prizes included a complete tool trolley, donated by Crossgar Garage Services, and two Aberdeen Angus calves donated by Rann Developments

 The night raised a fantastic £2,700 which will go towards the rearing of the girls’ Aberdeen Angus cattle and to school funds.

The girls learnt a lot on the evening and will take this newfound knowledge forward and use it throughout their project to increase awareness of sustainable beef production for consumers.

 Following on from the success of the sustainable farming evening, the girls visited Cool Academy at the Bauer Media HQ in Newtownards for training in using media as a tool to help promote their projects.

They were joined by the other ABP Youth Challenge finalists from Aughnacloy High School, Royal School, Armagh, and Dromore High School.

During the tour they were guided by Downtown Radio’s Caroline Fleck, and met Victoria Quinn from Downtown Country’s breakfast show, as well as Coll FM presenters Paulo Ross and Paul Kennedy.

After the tour, the teams were given expert advice by Cool FM’s Stuart Robinson, who highlighted the different social media platforms available and shared some important tips to help the teams successfully utilise these platforms during the ABP Youth Challenge.

Victoria Quinn spoke about the use of TikTok, the fastest growing social media platform in the world, and how she has grown a follower base of over 40,000 followers.

She told the teams that authenticity, identifying a target audience and purpose were the key to being successful on TikTok.

Cool FM’s Melissa Riddell, who has gained over 140,000 followers on Instagram and almost 200,000 followers on TikTok, inspired the teams to stop worrying about themselves on video.

 After hearing from the experts, the teams had to put their skills to the test by creating a 30-second radio advertisement and a reel for their social media accounts.

It was a fantastic experience for the St Colmcille’s girls, who will put their new skills into practice as they share their ABP Youth Challenge journey on their Instagram @stcolmcilles_abpangusyouth.