A VOICE FOR CHANGE: The first young social innovators of the year have just been announced and Rachel Collier, who is managing the project at Social Innovations Ireland, has been staggered by the quality of their interventions
Teenage motherhood was the social issue explored by the winners of the first Young Social Innovators of the Year award, St Leo's Secondary School, Carlow. In second place, a team from Synge Street, CBS, looked at what to build into their school's social-education programme.
Joint third place went to Cross and Passion School, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, and John Scottus School, Dublin. The Kildare team are now well on their way to getting some youth facilities for Kilcullen and the Dublin team has spent the year making arrangements and acquiring skills for their project in Galati, Romania, where the students will travel in June to build a playground for a children's home.
This was the pilot year of Young Social Innovators (YSI), which involved nearly 200 Transition Year students. They demonstrated outstanding social awareness and the actions stemming from their participation were impressive. Throughout the year, the students pursued an issue of social concern. Among the issues which motivated them were: the recreational needs of people with disabilities; young people's needs and local facilities; teenage motherhood; religious intolerance; sweatshops and child labour; the elderly; asylum seekers; youth culture and teenage drinking. The young people were animated in telling visitors to their projects what they had done and what they think should be done in relation to their chosen issue.
YSI is a whole new way of providing social-awareness education in schools. It provides learning with an edge. It's theoretical but practical. Students need to go beyond the borders of the school and investigate what concerns them. So the school moves out beyond itself and the students bring back the learning. St Leo's, the winning team, worked well with the local community family centre to explore issues relevant to users of the centre and to come up with possible responses.
YSI is being spearheaded by campaigning nun Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and her new organisation, Social Innovations Ireland - a voluntary organisation set up to create innovative responses to social needs in the State. YSI is being planted in a strong tradition of social action. "Young people have an edge on us in many areas - not least because they are the future but also because they have no baggage, no restrictions, no bureaucracy issues, they are sharp and see things clearly," says Sister Stan.
Young people do indeed see things differently; they have an innate sense of justice, fairness and idealism. They are quick to spot the problem and suggest new ideas. Often this comes from their ability to relate issues to themselves. Students conduct their research from the perspective of what services they would like to have access to if they were a teenage mum. So, students from East Glendalough, Co Wicklow, considered what it would be like to be an asylum seeker here; students from Blessington Community School, Co Wicklow, took to wheelchairs to learn what it is like to have a mobility problem and find out what should be be done to make Blessington more accessible.
Young people are well able to address their needs given the chance. Students from Ashbourne Community School, Co Meath, looked at facilities for young people in their town, were not too impressed and are working on getting more facilities by becoming more politically and locally involved.
Wearing some brand names has become an issue of supporting child labour for students from East Glendalough school, who organised a "no label day" in school to raise awareness.
In Dublin, Pobalscoil Rosmini's students went out to schools for children with disabilities and saw the need for playground equipment. They not only went to work on new equipment; they took into account the special needs and requirements of the young people they wished to help.
The idea behind YSI is to motivate young people to engage with social issues. The competing demands of the curriculum can mean that the skills and talents required for future careers in this area often go untapped and unnoticed.
From the teachers perspective, the project gives a new, flexible and well-formulated framework within which to promote social-awareness education, cross-curricula working and real experiences of adult and community life - all of which fit well into Transition Year. It also builds on the Civic, Social and Political Education course at Junior Certificate.
Young Social Innovators is on the way to becoming a strong positive force in the lives of young people in Ireland. One student commented: "One of the greatest achievements is the realisation of our own potential to work for change."
Leinster schools can enter YSI 2003. Apply before May 17th, 2002 to SII, 42 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin 1; e-mail: Rachel Collier at colob@esatclear.ir; Tel: 086 8227335
