Young Social Innovators
An Irish non-profit education programme that supports secondary-school students in developing youth-led projects addressing social and community issues.
Last updated August 26, 2026
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Overview
Young Social Innovators (YSI) is an Irish non-profit organisation established in 2001. It runs an annual social-awareness, active-citizenship and education programme for students generally aged 15 to 18 in schools across the Republic of Ireland. Its central model is project-based: participating students identify a social, environmental or community issue, investigate it, engage with people affected by it, and develop an action-oriented response. The programme is designed to move beyond classroom discussion by encouraging young people to work collectively on practical initiatives with potential benefits for their schools and wider communities. YSI’s subject areas have covered a broad range of public-interest concerns. Projects recognised through the programme have addressed teenage motherhood, transport and future planning, attitudes toward asylum seekers and refugees, alcohol misuse, youth safety, bullying, suicide prevention, organ donation, information technology, LGBT inclusion, mental health, sexting, consent, accessibility, housing and homelessness, deaf awareness, and sun safety. This range reflects the organisation’s emphasis on issues that students encounter directly or that affect their communities, rather than on a narrow specialist curriculum. The programme has operated as a school-based competition and recognition scheme. Student teams present or otherwise submit their work, with projects receiving annual recognition for their social innovation and community impact. The documented winners show participation by schools from many parts of Ireland, including Dublin, Cork, Clare, Wicklow, Limerick, Kerry, Donegal, Monaghan, Louth, Tipperary, Longford, Meath and Carlow. Some schools appear more than once in the record, indicating that participation has extended across multiple years rather than being limited to one-off projects. YSI’s stated purpose is youth-led, community-based action capable of producing lasting effects. Its contemporary framing connects this work with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, giving students a framework for relating local projects to wider international challenges. The organisation therefore occupies a position between citizenship education, social innovation, community engagement and experiential learning. Its principal offering is not a consumer product but a structured educational programme through which young people research problems, collaborate, raise awareness and pursue change. Publicly available reference material identifies the organisation as Irish and records an annual programme, but does not provide sufficient verified information for a fuller account of its legal structure, headquarters, founder, current leadership, funding, staffing, financial performance or ownership. Those fields are therefore left unspecified. The available record supports describing Young Social Innovators as an active Irish youth and school-based social-innovation organisation, while its present operational details require further review.
History
Young Social Innovators was established in Ireland in 2001 as a non-profit organisation focused on enabling young people to respond to social issues through education and action. Its annual programme is aimed at students aged 15 to 18 and is delivered through schools in the Republic of Ireland. Rather than treating social awareness as solely a classroom topic, the programme uses team-based projects to connect research, discussion, civic participation and practical intervention. The organisation’s documented history is most visible through its annual winning projects. The first recorded winner, in 2002, explored teenage motherhood in the community through a project from Saint Leo’s College in Carlow. Subsequent winning projects addressed future transport planning, public attitudes toward asylum seekers and refugees, alcohol misuse, youth safety, bullying and social exclusion. These early examples established a pattern in which students selected issues with a clear local or social dimension and attempted to influence awareness or behaviour around them. During the following decade, the programme’s recognised themes expanded to include suicide prevention, community café development, organ donation, online and information-technology risks, LGBT inclusion and global citizenship. The winning projects came from schools across the country, demonstrating the programme’s national rather than purely local reach. The record also shows that schools could return to the programme in later years; Largy College, for example, appears among the winners in both 2015 and 2017 with projects on LGBT inclusion and mental-health awareness. From 2018 onward, the documented projects increasingly focused on digital safety, sexual consent, accessibility, domestic or interpersonal harm, housing and homelessness, deaf awareness and sun protection. This progression suggests that the programme has remained responsive to issues affecting young people and their communities, while preserving its core method of student-led investigation and action. In 2020, a project on accessibility was recognised during a period when schools and communities were facing significant disruption, followed in 2021 by a project addressing warning signs and breaking silence around abuse or harm. The programme’s recent framing places youth-led community action alongside the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This gives participating students a broader reference point for connecting local concerns with global social, environmental and civic priorities. The organisation is consequently best understood as an experiential citizenship and social-innovation initiative delivered through Irish schools, rather than as a conventional commercial brand. Available reference material does not establish the names of founders or executives, the organisation’s exact legal form beyond its non-profit description, its headquarters, funding arrangements, or its current programme administration. It also does not document a separate corporate parent or owner. The historical record is therefore strongest on the annual programme and its recognised student projects, and weaker on organisational governance and operations.
- 2024
Sun-safety project recognised
[1]Castleisland Community College in County Kerry was recognised for “Tonbwee - Castleisland” and its “Sun Smarties” project.
- 2023
Deaf-awareness project recognised
[1]Holy Family School for the Deaf in Cabra, Dublin, won with “Deaf Awareness - A Language for all.”
- 2022
Housing and homelessness project recognised
[1]Loreto Secondary School in Letterkenny was recognised for “No Place Like Home.”
- 2021
Project on warning signs and silence recognised
[1]Mercy Secondary School Mounthawk in Tralee won with “Red Flags ‘Break the Silence’.”
- 2020
Accessibility project recognised
[1]Cashel Community School was recognised for “Step Up For Accessibility.”
- 2019
Consent-awareness project recognised
[1]Bush Post Primary School in Dundalk won with “Let’s talk about consent.”
- 2018
Digital and sexual-safety project recognised
[1]Ardscoil Mhuire in Corbally was recognised for “Sexting, Get the message #keepitpg.”
- 2017
Mental-health awareness project recognised
[1]Largy College won again with “Mend a Mind - It’s a Disorder Not a Decision.”
- 2016
Global citizenship project recognised
[1]Portmarnock Community School was recognised for “Global Citizens Mapping The Future.”
- 2015
LGBT inclusion project recognised
[1]Largy College in Clones won with “LGBT - Let’s Get By Together.”
Products and positioning
A youth-led Irish education and community-action programme that turns social issues identified by secondary-school students into collaborative, practical projects linked to active citizenship and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
School-based social innovation and active-citizenship education · 2001
Young Social Innovators Programme
YSI’s principal offering is an annual programme for students approximately 15 to 18 years old in Irish schools. Student teams investigate a social, environmental or community issue and develop a project intended to raise awareness or produce practical change. The programme combines learning, collaboration, community engagement and public recognition through an annual competition or awards process. Its documented projects range from bullying and mental health to accessibility, consent, refugee inclusion, deaf awareness and sun safety.
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