Roisin Grant

Cnoc Mhuire, Granard, Co. Longford

On the 11th of November I went on a euroscola trip I won through the midland drug and alcohol task force, the first day we spent most of it travelling. We flew to Frankfurt and stopped on our way from Frankfurt to Strasbourg in Baden-Baden, we did a bit of sight seeing before setting off to Strasbourg. On the 12th (Tuesday) we set off early in the morning and arrived at the parliament. Firstly there was a message from Roberta Motsola, the president of the EU parliament, Then we had a chance to ask questions and share our opinions in a Q&A with Fabianne Keller,who is the quaestor of the European Parliament, about climate change and the European Parliaments actions towards it. There was 49 classes from 27 countries invited. After lunch we had a mock debate and the main topic was gender pay gap in Europe which is average 12.7%. It was interesting to hear everybody’s opinions and outlooks on the topic. After this we had a Q&A with Ryan Meilak who was a European Parliament member who handles the relations with the USA and Europe and he spoke about Donald trump being elected and his impact on the EU. We finished up after this and spent the evening touring Strasbourg. The next morning on the 13th, we went on a boat tour of Strasbourg and set off home. We stopped on the way to look around heidelberg. This was an amazing experience and it was wonderful to be able to meet people from all over the world and from all walks of life. I loved being able to talk to people about their opinions on all of the topics we talked about in the parliament and learning about the differences between my life and others my age who are from other countries
Thanks so much for everything!
Roisin Grant