Laura Dowling

And this festival is an amazing experience, despite what some naysayers may say.

I have an alumni, a group of friends across the world, regardless whether they're in my year or not.

I could go on a tangent.

But from that, I got to travel to different parts with Irish organisations.

So the Hope Foundation, we went to Calcutta in India.

One of the poorest places in the world, women, mothers and grannies picking out of this, it's called Howard Dump Site, picking plastic out of the dump that went on for miles.

And Hope Foundation does a lot of work with children who are either homeless, living on the street or involved in sex trafficking and try and rehabilitate, bring them into school and give them a better opportunity.

But there was one girl we met on a night run and she refused to come in into shelter.

And I still get haunted by the way she looked.

And her stance, she couldn't have been more than eight.

Her stance, her eyes, her maturity was just out of this world.

Did you get to talk to her as in the translator?

Was she living on the street?

No, it was a game.

You know, she was like, what's the currency exchange?

What can we do?

She was hustling.

And then we went to another block and there was a mother, there was a bar here and then maybe two doors down, there was a mother with six children living on the street and she was sex working.

And, you know, through translation, it was shared.

If she wasn't wanted, any of the six children were up for grabs.