Shaun Conaghan: Co- Founder of Activ8 Camp
Shaun is a proud Donegal man and comes from a small fishing village on the coastline called Killybegs. However, he is most at home getting active in the outdoors and spending time with family and friends. He enjoys playing team sports such as Gaelic football, soccer, basketball and runs 800m track events competitively for Clonliffe Harriers AC. He has a love of travel and has visited over 50 countries, if he is not climbing trees with goats or meeting interesting new people he can likely be found challenging himself to scale the highest mountain of each new place he visits.
Shaun is extremely passionate that our decisions about what foods we put into our bodies and making time for an active lifestyle is the most important decision we make every single day to make us healthier, happier and prevent chronic disease. He is concerned at worrying statistics about how increasingly inactive and unhealthy Irish children are becoming and wants to change this trend. He feels education intervention at primary level is crucial to empower children to make informed lifestyle decisions now. He cites the nutritional work of Dr. Michael Greger MD as a major influence.
Shaun has event management experience at the highest level working in various roles as manager of Killybegs Foroige youth community partnership, Student’s Union President and event coordinator to our 3500 students in St. Patrick’s College DCU and in his role with industry leader, MCD Productions. He is Co- founder of Donegal Dragons breast cancer rowing team. The team is now recommended by Letterkenny Oncology Unit’s specialist Dr. Sugrue as a “psychological and physical follow on treatment” for cancer survivors. The Donegal Dragons team have competed at national and international events and has breast cancers survivors from all over the country.
Shaun has 10 years experience as a classroom teacher working across all age levels and has worked with school children researching the impact processed and high sugar foods have on our well being and facilitates children to experience the instant benefits of switching to a whole food diet with a particular emphasis on plant based foods. The children’s work and experiences has been in national papers, RTE news and has been exhibited in sciences fair. Shaun is passionate about the physical and mental benefits of getting active and looks forward to working with his close friend Pauric to bring the Activ8 Message to children all over the country.