Back : L to R: Laura Gillespie – Irish professional racing cyclist, Daisy Drohan – The Shona Project Ambassador, Tammy Darcy The Shona Project CEO & Founder, Anjelica Foley – The Shona Project Ambassador & Aoife Hutchison – The Shona Project Ambassador,(Front L to R) Ellen Walshe – Irish Olympic Swimmer & Ellen Conway – The Shona Project Communications Manager at the Premium Club in Dublin’s 3 Arena in Dublin City.
THE SHINE FESTIVAL BY THE SHONA PROJECT TAKES PLACE ON 11TH & 12TH OF OCTOBER – AN EMPOWERING TWO-DAY EVENT FOR TEEN GIRLS WHICH AIMS TO TACKLE THE ISSUES FACING THEM
www.shinefestival.ie for complimentary online tickets
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80% of teenage girls don’t feel they will have the same opportunities as boys
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77% of teen girls in Ireland don’t ‘feel beautiful’
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Almost 60% agree that they have worries or anxieties that nobody knows about
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84% think negative thoughts about the world around them
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90% have negative thoughts about themselves
On Tuesday, October 11th and Wednesday, October 12th, The Shona Project will launch its hybrid (online and in-person), multi-award-winning SHINE Festival in celebration of International Day Of The Girl. SHINE is Proudly supported by Permanent TSB, HP, The Dove Self-Esteem Project, Sport Ireland, PLAN International, BAI, Eastgate Engineering, Cogs and Marvel, SAP, BEAT 102-103, iRadio, SPIN 1038 and SPIN South West.
The two-day event will have over 100 impressive online and in-person speakers including Roxie Nafousi, Erica Cody, Louise McSharry, Ellen Keane, Georgie Crawford, Senator Eileen Flynn, special musical guest Lea Heart and many more. Guests can tune in free of charge online and the in-person event will take place at The Conference Centre at The Clayton Hotel Burlington Road where over 1,000 girls each day will hear about topics such as mental health, wellness, mindset, career, diversity, individuality, the arts, sports, social issues, and sustainability.
The festival takes place on the back of new research conducted by The Shona Project and its partners at The Youth Lab and the Irish Secondary Students Union, which reveals worrying data on Irish teenage girls’ confidence, fears and mental health. In the past six months alone, teenage girls claimed that because of social media they struggled with low body image (61%), feeling isolated (55%), low self-esteem (52%) and low mental health (48%).
When looking at the threats facing them day-to-day, 61% of teen girls feel unsafe in the evening and night time, 56% of girls don’t know what they would do if they experienced bullying and a third of respondents agreed that their parents don’t have a good understanding of what’s going on in their lives.
When it comes to sports, almost half (42%) of teen girls in Ireland have given up sports in the last 24 months, the main reason being a lack of motivation to attend.
SHINE Festival is the much-needed empowering celebration the girls and women of Ireland need right now. The Shona Project strives to create a support system for all the girls of Ireland as they navigate their way through the teenage years.
Thanks to the SHINE Festival partners, the SHINE Festival live stream and website content will be available completely free of charge as a well-being resource for schools, teachers and students for the remainder of the academic year 2022-223.
Tammy Darcy, Founder and CEO of The Shona Project said:
“Like everyone else, the young women we work with have been hugely affected by recent historic world events. They are feeling more stressed, isolated and anxious than ever before. SHINE allows us to provide them with the inspiration they need right now, and invite them to become part of an empowering movement of women who are strong, resilient and authentic.”
Event Information:
The SHINE Festival is a 2-day hybrid event. The sold-out in-person event will take place from 10:30 am – 3:00 pm on the 11th and 12th of October in The Conference Centre at The Clayton Burlington Road, while online attendees can log on to The SHINE Festival website at any time over the two days to watch pre-recorded content while joining the live-stream of the live event on Wednesday 12th of October. The online site will have 9 stages featuring topics such as wellness, consent, mental health, careers, arts, sports, sustainability, careers, women’s health and much more. In terms of interaction, there will be competitions to win some great prizes, a self-love wall kindly powered by The Dove Self-Esteem Project, along with some 3-minute mind hacks that the girls can use to help cope with stress and overwhelm.
In-person tickets are completely sold out while online tickets are free of charge. Schools can sign up to stream the live event in class and are encouraged to deck out their school halls as mini-festival sites. This event is too good to be missed, so individual tickets have been made available for any girl or woman across the country – via www.shinefestival.ie. Individual tickets are also free, with the option to donate to The Shona Project. All donations, no matter how big or small, are always welcomed and are reinvested into The Shona Project to continue their work of empowering, educating and inspiring the young girls of Ireland.
SHINE Festival website link: www.shinefestival.ie
School and Individual Sign-up Link: https://forms.gle/
ABOUT THE SHONA PROJECT:
The Shona Project is a movement that tackles difficulties facing girls aged 11 and upwards living in Ireland in the era of social media – bullying, low self-esteem, body issues, anxiety, and depression. Founded by Tammy Darcy, The Shona Project’s mission is to educate, empower and inspire today’s girls to become tomorrow’s strong, confident leaders.
SHINE Festival is The Shona Project’s largest impact-based project with online SHINE Festival 2021 winning The Irish Red Cross Innovation For Change Award, The Gold IMRO Award in the Digital Innovation category along with it contributing to The Shona Project Founder, Tammy Darcy, winning The Irish Red Cross Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2021.
This is an exciting time for The Shona Project. It is growing from strength to strength and is looking forward to what the rest of 2022 has in store.
*The Shona Project research was conducted with The Youth Lab and The Irish Secondary Schools Union and surveyed over *500 teens aged 12-19.
