Limerick school honoured at Young Social Innovators 2022 Awards

Young Social Innovators 2022 – John the Baptist Community School in Hospital presented their ideas and actions to a panel of Limerick-based peers at a Young Social Innovators event.

John the Baptist Community School was recognised for its ‘Words And How You Say Them Matter’ project

A Limerick school was honoured at the Young Social Innovators of the Year Ireland (YSI) Awards for its positive impact in helping to create a more equal, fair and sustainable world.  

John the Baptist Community School in Hospital presented their ideas and actions to a panel of Limerick-based peers at a Young Social Innovators 2022 event. 322 students showcased their means of contributing social good to local society. These representatives included team members from Limerick Youth Service, Ballyhoura Development CLG, Gaisce, and Young Social Innovators. A total of 22 teams of students across both Junior and Senior Cycle in the school, developed and implemented social innovation projects on a wide range of issues at the event.

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Picking up the Relationships and Sexual Health Challenge Award, supported by HSE Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme, a team from John the Baptist Community School, Hospital, was recognised for its Words And How You Say Them Matter project. The John the Baptist Community School team was passionate about providing teens with the tools they need to communicate consent. 

The team’s innovative idea in response to this issue was to create lesson plans for teachers of SPHE on the topic of consent. The team created four lessons, two to be taught to Second Year students and two to be taught to Third Year students. The team hopes that, in the future, more young people will be equipped with knowledge and awareness and will feel confident in how to communicate consent.

Now in its 21st year, YSI focuses on empowering Ireland’s young people to reimagine the world and the communities they live in, by developing and implementing ideas that help create a fairer, more equal and sustainable world. Today’s Awards ceremony was compered by Virgin Media’s Zara King along with former Hometown member, and YSI Speak Out Tour Host, Dayl Cronin. It was a huge celebration of teenagers’ achievements in what has been a challenging year for students and their teachers. 

This year’s programme saw participation from 6,123 Irish teenagers from 209 schools and organisations and the development of 423 social innovation projects nationwide on a wide range of issues including health and wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, the environment and sustainability and many more. 35 shortlisted projects competed for today’s headline and Challenge Awards with a variety of innovative projects. 

Young Social Innovators Co-Founder and CEO, Rachel Collier, said, “Each year, I am blown away by the passion and creativity of Ireland’s youth. Every year, we see future leaders creating social innovations and addressing the challenges we are facing at local, regional, national and international levels.  These young citizens will help shape our economy, our culture and our future political arena. They have a huge part to play in shaping our future communities and society, and to be able to give them a platform to share their brilliant ideas is a huge honour. This generation, Gen Z show a great understanding in what can be achieved to create a more fair, inclusive, and sustainable society. It is truly humbling to witness such incredible passion and enthusiasm for important social causes impacting across generations. From all at YSI, we extend our sincere congratulations to today’s new title holders, along with each and every student who took part in projects throughout the year.” 

Addressing this year’s participants via letter in advance of the Awards, President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, said,” The Young Social Innovators Programme has, for over twenty years, encouraged young people to take a critical look at our shared world and reflect with vision and creativity on how we can improve that world. Across those years we have witnessed, again and again, the real will that exists amongst young citizens to achieve a fairer and more equal society and to become actively involved in effecting change.” 

“They are qualities we witness once again this year with all those shortlisted for an award proving themselves to be socially aware young citizens, with so much potential to contribute to the transformation of Ireland. May I commend each and each and every one of you for responding with such innovation, generosity and energy, not only to the challenge of imagining how you might contribute to real social change, but also to the more difficult challenge of turning your ideas into positive action.” 

For more stories on Young Social Innovators, go HERE

To find out more about Young Social Innovators 2022, go HERE