RTE film being made about Athlone teens

Work has started on a documentary film following two Athlone secondary school students over the course of their Leaving Cert year.

The programme, which has been commissioned by RTE, will focus on Natasha Maimba and Minahil Sarfraz who are sixth years in Our Lady's Bower.

The teens became friends when they were young children living in Athlone's asylum seeker accommodation centre in Lissywollen. They have since gone on to become articulate and thought-provoking advocates for child refugees globally.

Through their role as UNICEF Youth Ambassadors, Natasha and Minahil spoke at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2016, and at a high-profile charity event in London's Wembley Arena last March.

The producer of the new documentary film, Maurice O'Brien, said it would cover Natasha and Minahil's experience of sitting the Leaving Cert while also "telling their back story" along the way.

Currently, the film is at a very early stage of production. It's expected to be broadcast on RTE around October of next year.

It won't be the first time Natasha and Minahil have been featured in a documentary.

Towards the end of 2014, the then-13-year-olds spoke about their lives at the centre in Lissywollen in a powerful RTE radio documentary called 'The Outsiders - Our Teenage Life Behind Barriers'.

The producer of the new film, Mr O'Brien, has previously made critically-acclaimed films for the BBC, RTE, Irish Film Board, Guardian Documentaries, Channel 4 / Discovery, and Creative Scotland.