FOR THE LAST ten years, Athlone radio station iRadio has been broadcasting to the Midlands, North East and North West of the country.
Every morning between 9.50am and 12.50pm, their show iWork is presented by Emma Nolan, who this week, was joined by a 15-year-old school student named India Kennedy. India, who’s from Donegal was doing work experience with the radio station, and she made quite an impression on the rest of the staff. In a statement, Emma Nolan said that India “impressed us all with her bubbly personality, general positivity and kindness but also with her drive.”
In iRadio’s statement, Emma also explained that India is currently dealing with the fact that her 19-year-old sister Chloe has recently been diagnosed with cancer. To make things a little easier, Emma Nolan and the rest of the team at iRadio decided to set up a little surprise for India. Emma brought India on air yesterday morning, and introduced her to listeners:
For those of you who don’t know, India has been with us here on iRadio all week on work experience and I just want to say to you India, you are one of the most stand-out people I have ever met, who have come in on work experience and done this with us on iRadio. I think you are a huge talent and a fabulous person and you’ve got a huge amount to offer. You’re a wonderful – what age are you? You’re only fifteen. Wow.
At this stage, India was beaming. That’s work experience sorted. You couldn’t get a much better reference than that. After this glowing introduction, Emma changed the subject to India’s sister Chloe and asked if she’d like to share the story of her cancer diagnosis.
She’s an amazing person. She’s so strong and she lifts the whole family and I just want to say thank you to her because she’s amazing and I love her so much. I’m sure it’s difficult for her to stop college and have to stay at home while all of her friends are out, but she’ll get through it. We all know she will. So, I just wanna say that she’s amazing. I’m so blessed, my family is incredible. My mum and my dad, my whole family are so strong. I’m so blessed.
Emma pointed out that Chloe is in the best hands, before telling India, “I think you guys deserve a treat.”
India had been quite disappointed that she couldn’t attend iRadio’s Christmas Cracker party because she’s under 18, but Emma informed her that the team had pulled a few strings to get her into the gig’s soundcheck this Friday. Emma called up iRadio’s David Duke who said:
We want you to come along to the soundcheck of Wild Youth, meet the band, just so you get the experience rather than missing out completely because listening to your story and listening to all the high compliments people had for you in iRadio this week, we can’t do nothing and we’d like to do something.
We want to hang out with you and we’ve spoken to your mum. She can bring you and your two sisters on Friday night to meet Wild Youth and get your pictures taken, to hang out with the band, and hang out with us from iRadio at the Voodoo Venue. Not only that, I did another bit of digging this morning, and I wanna get you to another gig next summer. I’ve a pair of tickets for you to go to George Ezra, you can bring who you like.
Well, it’s safe to say that work experience was a success for India Kennedy.
