LETTERKENNY school teacher and well known musician Bri Carr has teamed up with an Arranmore secondary school student to record a music video.
The single ‘White Noise’ was released to mark World Autism Awareness Day.
Bri penned the song two years ago and decided to collaborate with 16-year-old Eoghan Bonner, a talented artist who has autism, to create the video.
Eoghan’s mum Florence spoke to the Donegal News about the importance of raising awareness of autism and about her son’s impressive artwork.
“We need to educate people. If I didn’t have a child with autism I wouldn’t be able to relate. We speak about an inclusive society but we are not there yet,” said Florence.
“Awareness is very important and accepting people for who they are, being less judgmental and helping them. We have challenges but we try and turn them into positives.”
Florence said Eoghan has been drawing since he was very young, a talent that has flourished in his teenage years. The young man is in Transition Year which Florence says has done wonders for his social skills.
“We had a lot of challenges when he was younger,” explained Florence.
“We were very proactive and we went to courses so we would know what to do to help him. He had access to all speech and language and occupational therapy that were available at the time.”
Although she worried whether her son would be disadvantaged by living on an island, Florence said the school and the community on Arranmore have been brilliant and praised his dedicated Special Needs Assistant. Florence herself went back to school later in life to get a higher diploma in special needs and said her son was her motivation. She now works as a special needs co-ordinator in a secondary school.
Eoghan’s dad has played a big role in helping put his art online and the aspiring illustrator and cartoonist created his own website The RedBelt Files to display his work.
Recognising his immense talent, Bri Carr reached out to collaborate on a video for her single. She was inspired to write the song after a family day out to Glenevin Waterfall in Clonmany.
During the visit they met a couple leading a young man with autism to see the waterfall. He had headphones on and was listening to white noise which was calming and soothing him. Moved by what they had seen, the family spoke about the encounter the whole way home. After that the words came to Bri and she wrote the song in twenty minutes.
16-year-old Eoghan Bonner drawing on the sand on Arranmore.
Through her work as a teacher in Lurgybrack National School Bri has also experienced working with children with autism over the years and said she is always thinking about the best ways to communicate and if she is doing the right thing.
“Everyone knows someone with autism. There needs to be more awareness that autism is a different ability not a disability,” she said.
The music video shows Eoghan drawing in the sand on the beach on Arranmore while Bri is filmed singing in Gaoth Dobhair. Music is provided by Yvonne Fahy with additional artwork by pupils from Lurgybrack NS.
Bri is astonished by the response to the video with messages coming in from Australia and America. She said she would now love to see school children across the county singing the song to help raise awareness about autism.
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