Ethiopia 08: March 2008 Archives

18-year-old student Tara McGrath devised a fuel efficient pressure stove which was entered into the 2008 BT Young Scientists Exhibition in January 2008. The following is an extract from Self Help's press release (linked below):

The design for a fuel efficient stove which also preserves nutrition while it cooks, has won a Kilkenny teenager a prestigious national award.

Leaving Certificate student Tara McGrath from Presentation Secondary School in Loughboy, Kilkenny, was presented with the Irish Aid sponsored ‘Science for Development Award’, at the BT Young Scientists Exhibition, last weekend.

The 18 year old picked up the award for her ‘Novel Hybrid Pressure Stove’, and also received a 2nd place citation in her Senior Science Category at the annual showcase event at the RDS in Dublin.

The special category ‘Science for Development Award’ is run by Self Help, in conjunction with Irish Aid, and seeks each year to recognise and reward a student project at the Exhibition which seeks to find innovative practical solutions to the problems and challenges faced by communities in the developing world.

As her winning prize Tara McGrath was presented with a perpetual trophy, and a travel bursary from Irish Aid worth €5,000, to enable her to travel with Self Help on a field visit to Africa to research her project idea further.

Julian Hills (director), Andy Edger (camera) and myself (location sound) geared up and met at Julian's house and got on the road to Kilkenny at 7.30. The purpose of the visit was to meet Tara, get her used to us and the prospect of having a camera, mic and director stuck in her face at all times of the day and night, and also to meet her family and reassure them that as a crew we were OK and non-intimidating. And also to film some biographical material for the documentary.

We arrived at Tara's family home and were welcomed by Mary and Rick, her parents. Got some tea down us after the peculiarly Irish trait of saying 'no' but meaning 'yes' and then started working with Tara. She's great, a natural and smart to boot. We shot some material around the stove and in Rick's workshop where it was devised. Rick is a fascinating man, and inventor-engineer-artist and lover of the sea, a man who is clearly a great influence on Tara, as is her mother Mary, from whom Tara inherits her wit, charm and élan.

We finished up in the afternoon when preparations were being made by Tara and her family to depart for Dublin that evening, ready for the 6.15 flight to London next morning.

The crew headed home to snatch a few hours sleep.

02.45 am. Alarm call. Ate slices of toast. Drank coffee. Brushed teeth. Looked at kids for a silent goodbye. Phonecall to meet taxi. Met Claire Ryan (production manager, Liberty Films) for the first time, along with Julian and Andy.

03.15 a.m, Bewley's Hotel, Dublin Airport. Waiting outside hotel to film Tara leaving with her mother and teacher. Cold, nervous, sleep deprived, jittery. We see a random person vomiting outside, nerves before flying. She was not one of us.

4.00 a.m. Tara emerges, apprehensive, what have we let ourselves in for? Into the taxi, off to the Airport.

04.15 am. Dublin Airport, Departures. Seething with people, I've never seen it so busy. St. Patrick's and Easter weekends back to back, Six Nations Ireland vs England at Twickenham, people flying all over the place for skiing and spring breaks. Queues everywhere, tension mounting, nerves jangling. Pick up a few exterior and interior shots of the departures lounge to set the scene.

04.30 am. The rest of the Self Help group start appearing in Departures. Comprised of two leaders, eleven teachers and fourteen students of transition year and leaving cert ages. Plus us four makes a group of thirty one.

06.45 am. Flight to London, first chance to sit down and, well, relax is the wrong word, but calm down. Claire and Andy manage to travel business class. This particular stigma stays with them for the duration of the trip. Arrived in Heathrow without incident. There's a long lay-over in Heathrow due to shortage of Dublin-London flights.

08.00 am. Because we have four hours to kill, we decide that it's a great idea to go into London for a few hours. Julian, Andy and myself go on a relationship-building-exercise and hare off into London on an Underground express service. Andy is a natural wit and makes a travelogue with his mobile, which must make it up onto YouTube sometime in the future. We see Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, the Changing of the Guard, red London buses, the London Eye, the Tate Modern and Hyde Park. There's a large crack in the floor of the Tate Modern, a conceptual piece by Doris Salcedo called Shibboleth. I don't know whether it's me or the crack, but I have an uncontrollable urge to straddle it. Julian obliges by taking a picture.

We have breakfast. We have falafel. We do London, we drink water. We sight-see, we walk the South Bank, we talk. We have coffee. Then we have beer. We head to Paddington to catch our train back to Heathrow.

There's a security alert and all trains have been cancelled to Heathrow.

Panic!

We need to get to Heathrow, but how? We jump into a cab and head west, promptly getting embroiled in a traffic jam with all the traffic headed to Twickenham for England vs Ireland in the Six Nations. Shit! Time is getting tight and we're getting nervous. The beers we had earlier are taking their course and bladders are getting precipitous. Damn! The pain.

Finally we pass the Twickenham traffic and move freely out to Heathrow. Lesson learnt.

Use the toilet before hopping a taxi, or don't go to London before an international flight.

13.20 pm, our flight departs for Addis Ababa. We crew are suitably embarrassed about the London escapade, but on balance it was worth it, no harm done and considerable enjoyment was had. Except for the taxi bit.