Young Reporter: How we have coped with life in coronavirus lockdown

Wiktoria (right) with her three family members who tested positive for coronavirus

Teenage life presents all sorts of challenges and opportunities, but what happens when everything is disrupted by a pandemic?

BBC Young Reporter asked young people from across the UK to share their stories of how coronavirus and the lockdown affected them.

11-18 year-olds were invited to upload their experiences and story suggestions.

Here, three young people from Northern Ireland tell their stories.

'I'm sure I had coronavirus'

Wiktoria, 15, wasn't tested for coronavirus, but given her symptoms and the fact three members of her household tested positive, she believes she had the virus.

I was trying to write this story multiple times, but something never felt right. How can you imagine how a person who has coronavirus feels?

How do you think a person who has it feels, after you hear that another person has died?

After all it's just a number which rises higher each day, but what happens when you yourself are included into the group of people who have been infected?

I can only speak of how I felt fighting this invisible villain which has killed and infected so many.

I felt resentment, symptoms arise and you still say to yourself it's nothing, I'll be alright.

Maybe because it's so scary we don't want to face it? But resentment can't, and didn't, last forever.

I slowly took in the truth of what I was dealing with. Loss of taste, headaches, chest pains, a sore throat and a cough were my main symptoms.

I did not take the test for coronavirus, but my mum, sister and brother-in-law, who I live with and are key workers did, and they all tested positive.

I saw it all: The tents, the masks, the swabs, and the terrified faces.

You know what's the biggest thing there is to face when you have coronavirus? The people. They are scared, they look at you differently. But I was scared too.

Saying 'I have coronavirus' to myself was terrifying, saying it to others, for the world to know, was petrifying. All of those questions: How? Why? When?

After a month I can say that I know the answers to questions I wasn't ready to answer. I'm thankful for the experience because normally I like being in control of every situation, and then suddenly I was in a scenario where I was powerless.

This has helped me realise that it is okay to not have everything under control.

I'm healthy. All of us are now healthy.

'My parents are back in South Africa'

Deaghlan with his grandmother

Deaghlan, 16, left his family behind in South Africa and moved to Northern Ireland to pursue his dream of becoming a journalist.

I moved to Belfast from South Africa with my gran in the middle of December 2019, leaving behind my parents and brothers and sisters in order to further my education.

But within a few months we had gone into lockdown here, and I've had to cope with both leaving behind my family and the life I'd known in South Africa, as well as living in lockdown.

Due to the current restrictions, I don't know when I'll next get to see my parents.

My mum is from Belfast. She and her family left Northern Ireland for South Africa 45 years ago. But when my gran came back to Northern Ireland last December, I came with her.

I want to be a journalist. So I came to Belfast to do a media and music technology course at Belfast Met.

Deaghlan with his family in South Africa

It's been hard not seeing my family, as I was supposed to see them here at the beginning of May. Then I was meant to be flying back to South Africa later in a June for a holiday with them.

But South Africa has some of the strictest lockdown rules in the world, so I have just found out I now won't be able to go there.

This is really testing me and my family as I've never been away from them for more than a month - it has made being in isolation 10 times worse.

I've been chatting to them over video calls, but it still has been a shock. I also miss my dogs a load as they are a part of our family.

But there have been some positives to lockdown, as I have been able to focus on my interests in music and journalism.

I started a six month people's management course in January while I wait for the media and music course to begin in September, and we have been doing zoom calls just to keep us going.

As I reflect on my experience of the coronavirus lockdown, I would say it's had its ups and downs. But I keep a positive mindset to achieve my goals, as I continue to work on my music and journalism dreams.

Losing a grandparent to coronavirus

James (bottom right) with his brothers

James, 12, describes what it was like when his grandfather passed away due to Covid-19.

When I heard that the schools would be closing I got excited because I thought we wouldn't have very much work to do and that it would be good to be off.

At the start of I thought it was great because we had essentially got our summer holidays early.

A few days in I realised how wrong I was to think like that.

A few weeks after we got off school, my family received very bad news. My granda had Covid-19.

He was taken to hospital, and it was very hard to not be able to visit him at all.

James's grandfather died after a week after being admitted to hospital

A week after he was taken into hospital he died. My family and I were all very sad, and it was made worse as we weren't allowed to have a wake or Mass for him.

We had a funeral but only eight people were allowed to go.

I had to stand with my brothers outside the wall of the cemetery when my granda was being buried. It all felt a bit weird and unusual.

This has been a tough time for our family, especially since it reminds me of the very sad time eight years ago, when my eldest brother Ciaran passed away.

I have many happy memories of spending time with my granda.

I enjoyed gardening with my him, and I used to help him water the tomato plants in his greenhouse and he would collect me from school every day. I miss him a lot.

You can find stories by other young people on the BBC Young Reporter website.

Story ideas for this initiative can be submitted using a secure online uploader.

Young Reporter Northern Ireland index