2nd Year CSPE Students held an interactive talk on Thursday April 12th on development in Sri Lanka with Kate Coffey, receipient of The International Volunteer of the Year Award for 2017.

Kate is originally from Cork but now lives in Vancouver in Canada and was presented with the award on Capitol Hill in Washington DC last December.

Kate spoke to the students via Skype live from Vancouver at 4.40am local time and a little over 7000kms from Ballymahon.

She outlined her experiences in Sri Lanka - from helping small business owners to sustain and grow their business with the support of the VEGA / Biz program (Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance) to highlighting the perils of rural existence in Sri Lanka. Kate shared with 2nd year CSPE students some case studies on the individuals and busineses that she has met and helped.

The lesson was a nice example of how technology is bringing the outside world directly into the classroom and enabling speakers who are remotely based to share their own experiences with our students. Mr Burke and the 2nd Year CSPE class were delighted with the talk and are continuing to research this topic by visiting Kate's personal blog -"From Bowen to Bangladesh".