Limerick boy paints his way to success
A FOURTH class Limerick student has painted his way to success and struck a chord with judges as he was announced the overall winner of a national art competition.
The award for the #SomeoneLikeMe art competition was won by Jake Hoen Galvin, of Castleconnell, for his self portrait painting playing his guitar - inspired by Pablo Picasso’s work The Old Guitarist.
Jake, who attends Lisnagry National School, was announced as the Overall winner of the competition, which is held by the National Disability Authority of Ireland (NDA).
The competition allows children with special needs to enter a creative competition to showcase their abilities. Jake is 11 years old since last week, and has the learning disability dyslexia as well as physical sensory disability dyspraxia.
Marie Blake, Jake’s Special Education Teacher (SET) said: “I’m with Jake for the past five years - he just has difficulty organising himself and struggles a bit with coordination,”
“His art teacher told him about the #SomeoneLikeMe competition and before this, he had fallen in love with the guitar - he absolutely loves music and making music electronically.”
Marie also attended the award ceremony in Dublin with Jake and his mother: “Because he was the overall national winner, he was awarded a glass trophy, €500 One-4-All voucher and the school got a €500 One-4-All voucher as well,”
“We were all delighted for Jake!” Marie added.
Each province had a winner from different counties within the region, and there were two subcategories of Junior and Senior students in primary level education.
As well as being attended by the Minister of State with special responsibility for disabilities Anne Rabbitte T.D, the event in Dublin saw representatives from over 50 schools attend the ceremony.
The prestigious competition was first introduced by the NDA seven years ago and had over 2,700 entries from primary school pupils across the country this time around.