Mags GarganMags Gargan meets teen activists and social innovators working to improve their communities
“Follow the music” was my instructions on arrival at City West Hotel on the outskirts of Dublin looking for the Young Social Innovators (YSI) annual showcase and awards last week.
About 4,500 teenagers from across the country had taken over the hotel and in some ways it felt like I had walked into a music festival. There were signposts offering the way to the silent disco, open mic, hip hop workshops, diary room and games zones.
Music from the open mic set filled the air as teens played crazy golf and a giant chess set and giant Connect Four on the green, and lots of people were wearing fancy dress, carrying props and placards and even offering free hugs.
However, behind this party atmosphere serious issues were being discussed as school teams presented their projects to judges after a year of research, fundraising, promotion and hard work towards improving life in their schools and communities.
Young Social Innovators is a youth organisation co-founded in 2001 by Sr Stan Kennedy to encourage young people to bring about change in their communities and wider society.
Empower
The programme is open to 15 to 18 year olds and aims to empower young people and give them the skills to come up with solutions to social problems that will benefit their communities. About 75,000 young people from over 200 schools and youth groups have participated in the programme so far and undertaken more than 3,000 youth led social innovation projects.
Since 2006 the YSI has been holding Speak Out Fora which gives young people a platform to present their projects on their chosen social issue. The presentations can involve music, singing, theatre and artistic displays, and the award finalists are chosen from the Speak Outs.
This year 64 social innovation projects from 50 schools and youth reach centres were shortlisted to give a three minute presentation on their social issue to an audience of their peers, invited guests and judges. Usually creative and colourful, and often entertaining, these presentations addressed a range of social issues including obesity, water safety, mental health, the creation of a respite centre garden, alopecia awareness, personal safety and isolation of the elderly.
Each year the showcase seems bigger and more innovative in catering for the large crowd of teenagers in terms of activities, competitions and use of social media. However, the students’ projects also get more and more ambitious and creative each year, with many schools now creating mobile phone apps, composing songs, filming YouTube videos and organising sophisticated fundraising events.
Presentation Secondary School in Mitchelstown, Cork presented a project on cyber bullying that involved writing and producing a play, designing a Bully Beware app, inviting the gardai to talk at their school and hosting an information night for parents and teachers.
Colaiste Mhuire in Askeaton in Co. Limerick, who focussed on the role of the bystander in bullying, composed a song, developed an anti-bullying board game for primary schools, designed anti-bullying wrist bands and put together student information packs.
The idea for the project ‘Stop Trafficking of People’ by St Mary’s Secondary School in Mallow, Cork came about during a brain storming session when the girls realised that none of them really understood what human trafficking is. One student thought it meant a lolly pop lady!
They organised petitions and fundraising events for APT Ireland, such as Cork’s first ever ‘colour run’ (where people throw paint at participants throughout a 5km route!) and three of the students were invited to be in the audience of a Prime Time programme about human trafficking thanks to their work on the project.
Raising awareness
Emma O’Callaghan says the project was successful in raising awareness of the issue and taking part in YSI was the “highlight of my year”.
Maryfield College in Dublin called their project ‘Wellness, we build smiles’ and Ksenija Ustimenko says it is about “introducing different health modules in our school and trying to get everyone happy and joyful in our school environment”.
“It’s also about ensuring that the first years coming in don’t get stressed out, and know where to go, where the counsellors are and that they fell relaxed in the environment,” says Asma Saleh.
Ksenija says the best thing about being part of a YSI project was “working together as a class”.
Students from Piper’s Hill College in Nass, Co. Kildare were inspired to set out to improve the image of teenagers in their local community through their project ‘Teenagers not Mean-agers’ after some of them were evicted from a fast food outlet.
“We felt we were being discriminated against,” says Shane Logan. “If there are four people sitting down and only two are eating, they kick the other two out. But if it was a family and the mother wasn’t eating they wouldn’t kick her out. But it is the same for us. If we were making noise fair enough, but we are not all rude and loud.
“We wanted to show mainly elderly people and children that we can help our community. We did arts and crafts with our local primary school, we did different workshops with the first, second and fourth class, we had a bake sale and clothes collection for Focus Ireland and we also plan to do a clean-up day in the community,” he says.
“It was really good fun,” says Amy Carey. “I liked working with the primary school. You could see when we went in first they were all scared but when we were leaving they were happy and waving and smiling. It was cool to see the difference.”
“I also think working as a team was good,” says Shane, “and it’s great to be part of a national thing where we can get the word out to thousands of people.”
The YSI team from Colaiste Muire, Ennis, Co. Clare was named the Young Social Innovators of the Year 2014 with a prize of €1,500 to develop their project ‘Beware of IT’, which aims to educate young people about the increasing dangers associated with internet usage. Runners-up were Mount Mercy College, Model Farm Road, Co. Cork for their project ‘Sexual Assault Must Come to a Halt’.
Resolving
Speaking at the awards Sr Stan said “today we’ve witnessed thousands of young people who are completely engaged in society and prepared to play an active role in resolving some of our most pressing social issues. Social innovation champions youth led, experiential learning. It’s ‘hands on’ active citizenship. Civic engagement should always be a core part of youth development and education. It’s learning for life and work but fundamentally it is learning about how you connect to the people around you.”
Speaking on the impact of social innovation education at the showcase, Rachel Collier, YSI Co-founder and Chief Executive, called for all young people to be given the opportunity to participate in a social innovation programme. “As a society we are facing huge local and global challenges. Science and technology are helping us to develop innovative responses to many of these challenges. Education for social innovation is playing a critical role too, promoting innovation for social good – advancing equality, fairness and social inclusion. This learning has to be a central part of the education for all young people in Ireland. It cannot be left to chance or as an optional module or course but as an integral part of youth development,” she said.