Social Entrepreneurs Ireland
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland recently announced their latest round of awards. These aren't sheeny shiny pieces of glass or metal that sit on your shelf. SEI offer generous cash awards to amazing projects that are making a real difference to people's futures, and Ireland's future.
This year, they awarded over €500,000 to three projects, including singer Frances Black, who set up The RISE Foundation in 2006. It helps families of addicts to understand the nature of the disease of addiction and the profound effects it has on relationships. The Foundation runs therapeutic and education programmes and seeks to tackle the stigma of having a loved one in addiction.
Dara Hogan set up Fledglings Early Years Education & Care after he identified a significant shortage of early year’s education places in Tallaght West. Through a social franchise model Dara has set up 4 sites creating over 150 early years education places and 38 jobs and plans further expansion.
The third award, the Bridge to College (B2C) programme, was created and developed by John Lawlor as he believes that the current education system in Ireland is failing to prepare students for a career in the smart economy. The B2C programme seeks to deliver a dynamic learning experience for young people based on a new model of team-based workshops and technology mediated learning.
Since launching in 2005 Social Entrepreneurs Ireland has made awards to 142 social entrepreneurs, directly investing over €3.47M into supporting exceptional individuals. These in turn have directly helped over 170,000 people and indirectly helped another 300,000 people.
I'm proud to say that Social Entrepreneurs Ireland helped talkirish.com with a Level 1 award back in 2009, and introduced me to a network of inspirational people.
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