Recently a European Networking Project, in which Finbarr O’Regan, former Principal Teacher, Carnaun National School, Athenry was involved, was honoured by an invitation from UN Headquarters in New York to present its work at the Conference on Sustainable Development 5th – 16th May. 

This 16th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development was focused on the thematic issues of Agriculture, Rural Development, Drought, Desertification and Africa. 

The network NEAC2 – “European Network of Alimentary Culture – Partnership for Sustainable Development” involves over 2000 students and teachers in 120 schools, universities, companies and local governments from 33 different European countries all working together on sustainability, through topics such as water and food. 

Finbarr O’Regan and his students in Carnaun National School, Athenry have been involved in sustainable development for many years and through their initial European funded Comenius project “I eat, therefore I am” – http://www.eat-online.net - received awards in Florence, Italy and Stockholm, Sweden in 2001. Theirs was only one of four projects to be presented at the European Parliament in Brussels the same year at the launch of Netd@ys Europe and in Dublin at the end of Netd@ys Ireland.  

The Carnaun School Organic Garden and related project, “Growing up in a New Europe”, http://homepage.eircom.net/~foregan/carnaun/growinguphomepage1.html  was presented in 2006, at Terra Madre, Italy - a network of food communities, each committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way – where 9,000 “slow food” delegates from all over the world attended. 

The presentation team in New York comprised of educators from Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Sweden.  

The presentation on the 12th May was presented by Enrico Scotto di Carlo, Comune di Procida, Italy who gave the opening address as Sponsor of the project, Professor Eugenia Tesoro, Caserta, Italy, Network Co-ordinator who presented the project in Italian and Finbarr O’Regan, (Director, Athenry ADC - an associated partner with the project) who presented the English version to a conference audience that was very interested in the network and the team had many visitors to their information desk for the remainder of the week. 

Plans are now afoot in Athenry ADC http://www.athenryadc.com to host a meeting of the Network, NEAC2, on the topic “Organic Gardening and Sustainable Development”, in Athenry next year. 
For more information on the project and on the Conference please visit the following websites. 
NEAC Project Website - http://www.neac.eat-online.net/  (over 1 million visitors)  
United Nations Partnership Fair - http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/index.html  

Growing up in a New Europe homepage