Patrick Rochford, EIL Board of Directors
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| EIL Members, Network Weekend April 2010 |
The weekend began when we all arrived to the YMCA on Aungier Street from the various outposts of Ireland such as Cork, Tralee or Trinity in the case of a few to start the Network Weekend. The April network is always hectic as it is Travel Awards season. We barely had time for a quick hello with old friends and a friendly chat to new faces when the candidates arrived and the welcome began. Quick diving into our groups and we were on our way. Each group started with activities and icebreakers then we broke for a quick lunch and chat over some super sandwiches in rather elegant boxes and then back to the interview stage. For the first-time interviewers its difficult trying to choose candidates for the older hands, its only just that little bit easier and sometime you wish you could give more awards than we have to give. Then we did the feel good bit, were we all sat in some hippy circle, I am sure it was because they had put the chairs way and we announced the winners of each award. Once the winners were announced and it was ‘out, out, out’ as we scrambled to get our room keys and dinner orders and it was off to the hostel and then to dinner.
After dinner, we headed to Trinity, were poor Mark had been slaving away behind the scenes to get the film all set up. We had a choice of two films and opted for Born into Brothers, a heart-rending film about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta’s Red-light District. We saw the stories of several children face abject poverty with little to no chance of escaping the stigma of their mothers work. After the film, it was off to bed!
After an incredibly early start, we headed to Trinity for the workshops. As soon as the coffee kicked in we began. We had two excellent speakers, each of whom treated the issues of Human Trafficking and sexual exploitation sensitively, and informatively. We discussed the ideas around trafficking, heard stories about VoT’s (Victims of Trafficking) and there was a real engagement amongst the network on concepts such as legalising prostitution, closing borders to stop trafficking or what we though how one could address the roots causes of trafficking and exploitation. Inspired from the workshop we begin to prepare for our traditional street action. The street action drew plenty attention with our blindfolded participants spelling out STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
After the street action, we headed for a lovely lunch at the Drury Court Hotel where I had the most delicious meatballs in my life… well maybe after the vegetarian dinner the night before at Juice, I just craved meat! After being fed and watered, the inevitable happened, time for hugs and goodbyes. As the EIL staff rushed for the cork train, the rest of the group petered out, happy from another successful EIL Weekend.Back to main e-news page |
