The second year students (class 2.2) of St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Doon, Co. Limerick recently completed their action project for their 2005 Junior Cert exam. The aim of their project was to raise awareness of, and money for, the people of the developing world. The area of Doon is focused around agriculture and many of the girls come from large farms, because of this they had a huge interest in Bóthar.

The contact committee got in touch with Bóthar and a guest speaker was invited to the school . The guest speaker came the following week and he really entertained them, they enjoyed the informative way of the speaker and learned a lot more about the workings of the organisation.

The students found that the method Bóthar used to help the less fortunate people of the South was really interesting. Once they had decided on the group they would raise money for, it was necessary for them to devise a fundraiser. After much debating on various forms of fundraising they decided on a ‘Car Wash’.

The main reason a Car Wash was undertaken was the students believed it would be different to any form of fundraising that had taken place in the school previously and also they would be outdoors enjoying themselves! Little did they realise the amount of hard labour the car wash would take!

The next big question for the girls to attend was on what scale would they do the car wash. It was decided to do a School Staff Car Wash on a designated day.

Groups were organised and these consisted of:

*Permission Committee

*Contact Committee

*Materials Committee

*Rota Committee

*Finance Committee

On the day of the car wash the girls brought in sponges, buckets, over-alls etc. vacuum cleaners and hoses were borrowed from the school. They decided on a car suds area, a rinse area and an area away from the water to clean the inside. The students formed groups and began their work. The caretaker helped with the moving of the cars to the various workstations. Everyone went to their stations and started on the job they were assigned. They worked tirelessly all day scrubbing and polishing cars. They were completely exhausted after the day's work, when asked if they would wash a car again, the answer was No! The finance committee collected the money and the final amount collected as a result of the car wash was €530 .

To conclude, the action project was an excellent way for the girls to bond and increase their knowledge of interdependence, human dignity and rights and responsibilities as concepts of CSPE were explored.