Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Network Update
May 20 2010
Network Update May 2010
2010 has been a challenging but exciting time for our network of social entrepreneurs. I hope you find some inspiration in the stories below. You can see further information about all of the awardees by clicking here.
Education and Learning
Antoinette Keelan – St John’s Education Centre
Life in St John's is gathering pace since the Parent Network has become active. A phone line is in operation five days a week as is the Drop-In Centre. Already there have been visits and many phone calls. The service has availed of the help of one of the resident counsellors to deal with issues requiring more specialised support and next year there is a commitment from an experienced counsellor to give time to clients referred for extra support by the service. A Rational Emotional Behaviour Therapy course has been scheduled in conjunction with a number of schools and will take place over the coming months. Currently the possibility of sponsors/mentors for each young person attending is being explored and these volunteers will be trained to continue regular support for the students in the everyday challenges as they move away from the structured programmes. St John's continues to seek to ensure that the quality of the work can constantly be maintained and developed through review and innovation. Bob Seward – Cork Academy of Music The Cork Academy of Music has been given a permanent home on the North Monastery campus. A very historic building has been allocated to the Academy by the Cork City Council. The building has an excellent situation and is fine accommodation for a music school that will now enable the Academy to further develop their training programme to include young children from the North side of the city. The Academy itself has had a very successful year with a number of students moving on to third level. They now have 30 people in full time training and 150 in outreach. Because of the employment situation at the moment they are inundated with requests for places in the school. In co-operation with the Department of Social and Family Affairs, Cork City Council and the local VEC, the Academy has established a course for young people using music as a tool for social inclusion. They established this project December last and have made excellent progress, so much so that these students have performed twice in public. Carmel Dunne – Ceol Ceol Ireland has had a 44% increase in income from schools for the first quarter of 2010, over 2009. Two thirds of those signing up for the coming year are existing customers and the remainder are new business. Ceol is working with INTO in providing a summer course in the Music Curriculum. Anyone who knows a teacher or parent please ask them to look up the website. Caroline Carswell – Irish Deaf Kids IDK has a spring in its step after receiving Ireland’s eGovernment award for Education in February 2010. These awards, presented with Eircom, aim to “raise awareness and recognise the innovators, developers, forward thinkers and experts … pioneering the changes happening in how the Irish Government delivers services to its citizens.” Hearing-aids are important to deaf children, but Ireland’s audiology services are severely lacking. Many parents told their stories on the IDK website in response to a national HSE survey of their children’s experiences with hearing tests and aids. The HSE Centralised Services office is aware of these stories, and is reviewing 86 submissions from families. In April, a €4k cash prize was offered to SMEs in Ireland that told 3 Mobile and the Sunday Business Post’s “Computers in Business” magazine, how €4,000 would boost their business in 2010. IDK’s pitch won the competition, which will fund an autumn project. Ten days later, IDK also won free entry to the IIA’s Audio Video Culture Workshop, to learn how online videos & podcasts will influence near-term digital business trends. James Corbett and Keith Kennedy - Daynuv GiftedKids.ie has published an early report on the pilot Daynuv programme run in Gaelscoil Eoghain Uí Thuairisc Carlow. Developed in conjunction with Bríd Uí Mhaoluala, Learning Support Teacher, it's the first programme of its kind in Ireland to use 3D modelling software and programming tools to teach part of the primary school curriculum in a learning support setting. Margaret Keane from GiftedKids.ie said - "Daynuv has created an engaging and empowering learning environment, particularly for children with exceptional ability and high visual spatial awareness". Feedback from the children themselves included this comment: "When such a programme, granting the ability to create anything and the chance to interact with other people, is used in the education of children the possibilities are massive." In other news Daynuv has been invited to make a presentation on "Educating in 3D" at next weekend's ICT in Education conference in Tipperary Institute. Margaret Keane – GiftedKids.ie As mentioned above, Giftedkids.ie has successfully collaborated with another Social Entrepreneurs Ireland awardee Daynuv in an innovative ICT project based at Gaelscoil Eoghain Uí Thuairisc Carlow. Margaret Keane, founder of Giftedkids.ie has also recently appeared on the TV3 Midweek show and is currently helping with research for an RTE documentary on exceptional children. Finally, in an exciting new project, Giftedkids.ie is partnering with Promethean Planet on the production of gifted education resources for their 338,000 teacher members worldwide. In the meantime their webinar project continues with guest speaker, Dr. Sarah McElwee, Oxford University, presenting a webinar on motivating exceptionally able children on May 19th. Michael Kelly – GIY Ireland GIY’s phenomenal growth continues apace – there are now on average two GIY meetings taking place every day somewhere in Ireland. Recent new additions to the network include Killorglin, Dublin City Centre and Trim while the coming weeks will see new groups in Abbeyleix, Ennistymon, Lucan and Ballina. There are now approximately 5,000 members in total including 2,300 registered members on the GIY website. GIY Ireland’s Michael Kelly was one of ten winners of an Arthur Guinness Fund Award on April 20th and appeared on The Last Word with Matt Cooper that evening to discuss the award and all things GIY. The award is a hugely important milestone for the project. GIY will be at Bloom (Phoenix Park, 3rd to 7th June) this year, trying to coax and cajole the general populace in to growing their own, from their very own GIY garden which is designed by Fiann O'Nuallain. The garden will be constructed and planted by GIY volunteers. Talk about a grassroots project! Mental and Physical Health Caroline McGuigan – Suicide or Survive Suicide or Survive are presently promoting their FOURTH Eden Programme in Arklow. SOS’s follow on workshops (every 6 weeks) which are open to all ex Eden Programme participants (theme of workshops lead by the service users) are really taking off. Suicide or Survive had evaluated the three Eden Programmes by an external organisation which shows the valuable work that is being carried out. Suicide or Survive are presently developing their workshop “Better for Business and Better for life” with thanks to National Irish Bank. They are due to do a road show at the end of June where they will run one in Galway, Letterkenny, Cork and Dublin. These workshops will be subsidised by National Irish Bank. Suicide or Survive are also creating videos “tips for our wellbeing”, and are in discussions with Ibec regarding the Wellness workshops. Financially Suicide or Survive are “surviving” like all organisations at the moment and are positive about the future of the organisation and the possibilities. Joan Hamilton – Slí Eile Joan Hamilton is delighted with the immediate impact the panel of speakers made at the Launch of the Slí Eile Farm Fund (SEFF) by Patron Jeremy Irons at the Charleville Park Hotel on April 23rd. Look out for Jeremy and Joan with tenants and staff on the Late Late Show on Friday 28th of March! This is an ambitious project that proposes to raise €2.8 million through philanthropic donations. Drawing on the rich and varied experiences of the past five years, Slí Eile is ready to expand and proposes to purchase and develop an 80 - 120 acre farm. The daily tasks of community farm life such as animal husbandry, horticulture, cooking and household chores will provide a structure and purpose that offers the opportunity for persons with mental health difficulties to regain control of their lives. At the launch of SEFF, Jeremy Irons made the point in his clear and witty way stating "This model has been successful in the US since 1913. Most Americans come from Ireland anyway, why can’t it work here?" Conor O’Leary – Rural Arts Network Rural Arts Network is co-ordinating a series of ‘inspiring tours’, starting this month with renowned folk singer Mary McPartlan travelling to ten counties and six community venues with support from the Arts Council. And there's more to come, with a tour to nine communities in October featuring our own ‘The Gombeens’ and Clare Muireann Murphy! Diverse public and private funding required to make these tours sustainable in the long-term….all contacts welcome! ‘Building Cultural Communities’ was a very successful 15 week accredited course run with Wicklow VEC. Eleven community based cultural events were organised by the participants and attended by 1400 people with over €5,000 raised for various causes. Rural Arts Network has established the Westmeath Rural Arts Initiative with the support of Westmeath Community Development. This voluntary group goes from strength to strength with this month alone seeing African drumming, the Mary McPartlan tour and the first rural arts ‘Film Club’ taking place. Rural Arts Network is seeking collaborators and partners to deliver tours, training programmes and development projects in local communities, countrywide and beyond! www.webjam.com/ruralartsnetwork José Ospina – Carbery Housing Association Carbery Housing Association has gained a new head of steam launching a campaign to use Ireland's 345,000 empty houses for housing the 80,000 households on Council housing lists, and also as accommodation for arts and crafts groups, community and environmental projects. The campaign is called CUBE (Campaign to Use Buildings that are Empty). CHA is also negotiating its first leases for empty houses with Cork County Council and a local estate agent. Liam Réamonn - The Living Communities The Living Communities believe that their ecotourism product is a superior product, competitively priced. It is furthermore a completely new product, for a number of reasons. When visitors come, people in Ceathrú Thaidhg, Mayo, will earn income from their own internationally traded business. In these times of retrenchment of the public spend, such a move is timely. Marketing will commence into France and Germany in the coming month. The website will be completed subsequently. The papers which it contains, e.g., on the linguistic connections between Irish, German, Hindi and Persian, have received some attention on the net. Myles McCorry - BikePure BikePure have recently topped 32,000 members in 86 countries. A network of 29 ambassadors helps Myles coordinate their mission to improve the future of sport, for the next generation of athletes (If you have a body - you are an athlete). BikePure’s campaign has a specifically, educated membership and they are making fantastic inroads with their advocacy work. They are launching PlayPure this summer, to celebrate ethical sport becoming a global symbol of true competition. BikePure wish to uphold sport as an essential component to personal development. If anyone in the network has contacts in elite level in any sport, Myles would love to hear from them. Myles has great contacts in interactive web design, printing and merchandising and is happy to help anyone, at anytime. Cormac Lynch - Camara Camara has made great progress in the first 5 months of 2010. The highlight of the year to-date was their receiving the Arthur Guinness Fund Award in April 2010. This €100,000 grant will be used to set-up and support Camara's hubs in Belfast, Galway and Cork. Camara's expansion programme is on target having received UK charitable status in April, and the process for similar status in the US well on track. Operationally Camara are on target for a record year, with regard to PC refurbishments and shipments. 2700 pcs have been shipped to date. Containers have shipped to Lesotho, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, and Rwanda. Camara source support from Companies to fill the containers with Volunteers from UPS packing the Zambian container. Camara's overseas volunteer programme is well on the way with 40 volunteers currently going through detailed training processes, ensuring they are fully prepared for their overseas trip. Camara's new programme to provide educational technology solutions into Irish Schools is proving very successful. A number of schools have finalised orders, and Camara are in discussion with others, focussing on disadvantaged schools. Overall Camara has had a very good start to 2010. Young People and Children Dara Hogan - Fledglings Fledglings have been working hard at consolidating progress in its existing services while simultaneously building quality. The new Fledglings Early Years Manual has just been delivered and it is a ground-breaking document. Authored by Drs Mary Daly, Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone it aligns the government frameworks Síolta (for quality), Aistear (for curriculum) with the High/Scope early years approach adopted by Fledglings. The manual will be the driver of quality in the Fledglings early years services and it will also be a valuable marketing tool for recruiting new Fledglings franchisees. Fledglings are committed to external evaluation of the project and external evaluation is a condition of the funding by the Office of the Minister for Children & Youth Affairs (OMCYA). Accordingly, after specifying and going to tender for its requirements, Fledglings has appointed Paula Fitzsimons of Fitzsimons Consulting to carry out a two-stage external evaluation of the Fledglings project. The first stage will be complete by the end of the summer and will evaluate progress to date since 2008 and the second stage will report in early 2011 on the conclusion of the current tranche of OMCYA funding. James Nolan – FAST Kids Fun, Agility, Speed & Technique moved outdoors after the very successful indoor winter programme conducted in primary Schools that reached over 3000 children. Presently FAST Kids are working together with their UK partners delivering a new innovative outdoor programme of activity, designed to advance further the motor and fitness skills achieved by the children over the winter months, indoor programme. Meetings were conducted in Manchester with FAST Kids UK Partners and discussions on best avenues to expand to meet demand for FAST Kids programmes of activity in Ireland were very successful. FAST Kids also benefited from an article on childhood obesity in the Irish Times. FAST Kids programmes were held up as the ideal model in how best to address the obesity epidemic in Ireland. FAST Kids are now providing services in Dublin, Offaly, Laois, Meath, Westmeath, Louth, Galway. In other related news… FAST Kids director, James Nolan has been appointed Head of Paralympic Athletics in Ireland to lead the Irish team to the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Congratulations James! Ruairí McKiernan – SpunOut.ie
