Ms Rachel Collier:

Gabhaim buíochas le baill an choiste as a bheith anseo inniu i gcomhair chur i láthair Nuálaithe Sóisialta Óga. The vision of Young Social Innovators is to inspire, equip and empower young people to change the world for good. We do this through social innovation education. In essence, through the social innovation programmes we have designed, we engage thousands of young people, mainly teenagers, in social issues that concern them. In teams, they explore these issues, identify new responses or solutions and turn their ideas into action. It is team-based, action-focused and very much youth-led. Importantly for everyone, it exemplifies inclusive education.

Every year, we invite teenagers to take part in social innovation projects. They do this mainly through schools, Youthreach centres and youth services that sign up and receive access to our programmes and educator training. We train educators to facilitate teams of young people using our unique social innovation framework and resources. Teams at senior cycle are invited to a series of regional and national events. We operate a social impact fund on an annual basis and have given out over €100,000 to young people over the past 15 years. The Speak Out tour is another feature. We host it in the provinces and it gives an opportunity to young people to share their ideas locally, some of which are selected for our national awards.

Young Social Innovators, YSI, may be best known for its annual awards but that is just one element of our work. We have a competitive element, which is optional for young people, but our overriding purpose is to empower young people in society and to give them opportunities to contribute to creating a fairer and more sustainable world and to create much-needed social capital in Ireland, ultimately building our capacity to address the many challenges we face.

To date, more than 150,000 young people in some 600 schools have taken part in setting up over 5,000 youth-led innovations. YSI has trained more than 1,500 educators. Every year, approximately 220 post-primary schools and 14,000 to 15,000 young people get involved. We are also piloting a programme in primary schools.

YSI is, in fact, the originator of the concept of social innovation education in the world. This is a term we use to describe the learning and practice of using creativity to develop ideas to improve the well-being of people, communities and the planet. While social innovation and entrepreneurship and its methods were gaining momentum in the early 2000s, education in the area had yet to be discovered. It was virtually unheard of. It is informed by values of social justice, human rights and sustainable development and a firm belief that young people can and should contribute to communities and society in a much more pervasive way. It involves a pathway of change that incorporates design thinking, human-centred design and frameworks for critical and creative thinking.

The 2020 programme for Government commits to expanding access to social innovation programmes to all post-primary schools. With investment from the Tomar Trust and the Department of Education through the Dormant Accounts Fund, we are doing this by developing an area-based approach to youth-led social innovation. We now have local leaders in ten regions around the country. As well as supporting local schools, we are building networks of support for youth-led social innovation in different sectors from the business sector to the public, education and community sectors. We are ambitious in this approach. There is a challenge here that is not just for schools, education services and youth services. We are attempting to change a culture which has largely been exclusive of young people’s ideas and voices to one which is inclusive of youth voice, participation and innovation.

YSI is conscious that for this to happen, there is a need for us all to take up the challenge. It needs to be an important part of our very culture and the way we do things. We need all sectors on board to place a value on young people, their ideas and their innovations. They want to be involved, as we know from research we recently carried out with Amárach Research on the generation Z index, which was published last week and shows teenagers want to be involved. In fact, 78% of them want a greater say in future policies and planning, while 35% of them would consider becoming a political representative, which is very good news. Importantly, however, the vast majority, or 82%, do not believe young people have a say in how their area is planned, while a majority of members of generation Z approached for the survey wanted those over the age of 16 to have a vote and a say in Ireland.

We have seen many impactful projects over the years, not least those initiated by the young people here today, including the origin of the National Missing Persons Day, which was adopted by the then Department of Justice and Equality and which every year brings families together to remember those lost or missing. Many towns have benefited from YSI projects, including through environmental projects, playgrounds and gardens. This year, the high-impact award was given to Boomerang Youth Café in Drogheda, a project initiated by Our Lady’s College, Greenhills in the town. In Fingal, too, projects have been shown to be very impactful, such as in St. Fintan's High School, where the first ever student-led sustainable energy community for schools in the country was set up. Another school in Fingal mapped Lesotho in Africa, leading to much better planning in the country. Projects on policies include those relating to sex trafficking, human trafficking, sexting and cyberbullying - I could go on but the committee will hear more from the young people during the meeting. Our model of learning is being transferred from Ireland to new regions, in particular in Lebanon, Zambia and Sweden, through our international programme.

To address the challenges we face, we need to build Ireland's capacity and competencies in social change and innovation. Children and young people are an important part of that change who can and do deliver solutions to social problems. They should not be overlooked but should form an integral part of building our capacity to create the change we need to make. Our recommendations for the committee include support for the full roll-out of social innovation programmes; area-based support for youth-led social innovation; the development of an agency to support people under the age of 18 and to provide seed funding for their innovations; increasing research into youth-led social innovation; and support for our international programme to transfer knowledge to our partner countries as part of our remit to build peace in the world.