2004 | Dublin | Level 2
Colman Farrell
Suas
Suas is a youth and education focused organisation, which facilitates young people to address educational disadvantage at home and overseas.
Suas now has a network of twelve student societies across Ireland engaged in a variety of voluntary activities. It runs an annual programme of 30 evening courses and speaker events nationwide that aim to engage and inspire the wider public to participate in social change, runs an overseas volunteering programme for 90 participants each year and provide support to six schools and education NGOs across India & Kenya.
Colman first became involved with Suas during its early stages and became Chairperson in June 2003. He left Enterprise Ireland in January of 2004 to join Suas full-time and became CEO in April 2004.
Born and raised in Dublin, Colman studied Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. On completion of his medical internship he volunteered as a relief worker during the Rwandan Refugee Crisis in 1994.
He returned to Africa one year later, moving to Nairobi, Kenya, where he supported a group of local people to establish the Gatoto Community School in order to provide high quality, affordable education to the children in the slums. Today, the school has 1,000 pupils and regularly wins prizes at a national level in sports and music.
On his return to Ireland, Colman obtained a Masters in Multimedia from Trinity College, before pursuing a career across both the private and non-profit sectors: firstly, as an IT Manager for Knowledge Management with the Procter and Gamble R&D Division, then as a Software Development Manager for e-purchasing solutions, with General Electric. More recently, he worked as the Organisational Development Manager with the Irish state business development agency ‘Enterprise Ireland’.
www.suas.ie
