Meet the Winners

The winners of Young Social Innovators of the year 2024 were announced on 9th May in an Awards Ceremony hosted by Virgin Media's Zara King and media personality Dayl Cronin during an event at the Aviva Stadium that saw over 250 teenage changemakers receiving YSI awards across different categories recognising their ideas and actions for a better world to three panels of expert judges.

All of our finalist teams presented their inspiring social innovation projects for bringing about positive change in their communities, spanning a diverse range of issues aligned to YSI’s pillars of People, Communities and the Environment, all addressing the Sustainable Development Goals.

Congratulations to  all of the award winners in 2024!

Young Social Innovators of the Year 2024 Gold Award Winners

The winning team for the Gold Award were determined to raise awareness around the prevention of skin cancer by designing a four step programme for schools to follow to become a sun safe school and are working with the HSE to become Ireland’s pilot school for their Sun Safe Programme.

Young Social Innovators of the Year 2024 Silver Award Winners

The winning team for the Silver Award were passionate about creating an innovative, biodiverse community garden in a local café run by KWETB working with many different people and bodies to create a safe space where the community can come together.

Young Social Innovators of the Year 2024 Bronze Award Winners

The winning team for the Bronze Award were determined to help young men defeat the stigma around eating disorders by promoting body positivity and raising awareness through various initiatives such as fundraising, organizing athletics events, and social media campaigns.

Sustainability For Our Planet Award
 

The winning team for the challenge Sustainability For Our Planet set out to reduce fast fashion consumption within their school by informing their peers of the detrimental effects of fast fashion and holding a very successful ‘Clothes Swap Shop’ at their school.

Making Our World a Safer Place Award  

The winning team for the Challenge  Making our World a Safer Place focussed on the concerning issue of Domestic Abuse and were determined to find an engaging way to teach younger student about the topics. They designed and created an innovative card game aimed at educating 12-15 years on the important issue.

Healthy Connections Award

The winning team for the Challenge, Healthy Connections are determined to raise awareness of local and national mental health supports. Working with the Elephant in the Room movement they will use a Community Elephant as a symbol of hope and to remind people that it is okay to talk about mental health issues.

Healthy Lives & Sexual Health Award Winners 

The winning team for the Challenge, Healthy Lives & Sexual Health have shown a real passion for empowering young women like themselves by addressing issues surrounding women’s health such as period poverty, mistreatment in healthcare and social taboos through providing women with the tools and knowledge necessary for improved wellbeing.

Planet Protectors Award

The winning team for the Challenge Planet Protectors were driven by a desire to combat the urban effects on water quality and the marine environment in their home town of Buncrana. They have taken many innovative approaches to achieve this such as rain water gardens and have applied to the EU for funding to promote marine literacy education.

Open And Equal Communities Award

The Open and Equal Communities Challenge winners have taken great innovative actions in promoting more inclusion for the Deaf Community by creating fun ISL videos signing Nursery Rhymes to teach young hearing children sign language at preschool age and have written a campaign letter for ISL to be included on the national curriculum.

Brighter Futures Award

The winning team for the Challenge, Brighter Futures, are dedicated to reshaping perceptions of masculinity within their school community by challenging stereotypes while promoting positive aspects of being male through initiatives including ‘Role Model of the Month’ and collaborations with organisations like Jigsaw and St Francis’ School.

Push Back on Poverty Award

The winning team for the Challenge, Push back on Poverty, are committed to raising awareness around neurodiversity and unemployment. To help create more inclusive/work placement opportunities for students with ASD and other neurodiversities they met with Human Resources departments in leading multinational companies in their area around more flexibility in the interview process and more workplace accommodations to make them more inclusive. 

High Impact Award

The winner of the Hight Impact Award were passionate about raising awareness around the issue of racism and race based inequality, both globally and in Ireland. They felt strongly about promoting inclusion and equality by reinforcing the message that there is only one race, the human race. By running an education campaign the team set out to help people understand what racism means so that they have the knowledge to recognise racist speech and behaviour and to call it out. Watch a video about their project here.

Advocacy Award

Advocacy Award

Special Announcement

At the YSI Awards 2024, we were delighted to announce that RUST (Rubbish, Utilization, Sorting Technology), Coláiste Dun An Rí, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan were selected to represent YSI and Ireland at SAGE (Student Association for Global Exchange) in Tokyo in August 2024. Read a blog post about the project here.

RUST (Rubbish, Utilization, Sorting Technology), Coláiste Dun An Rí, Kingscourt, Co. Cavan