Students from Laois have been shortlisted to a national award for their social innovation project.
The Young Social Innovation awards, now in their 23rd year, is a competition which celebrates youth led social innovation.
Students pitch their projects on social issues to a panel of experts under the categories: ‘Planet Protectors’, Push Back on Poverty’ and ‘Make our World a Safer Place’.
The students’ project ‘BridgeAbility’, from Portlaoise College, really impressed the judges and they will go to the Aviva Stadium on May 9.
After learning that 85 per cent of adults with autism are either unemployed or under-employed, the group at Portlaoise College have been working to ignite change.
The Young Social Innovators at the school comprises mainly Transition Year students, with the exception of one student who is in second year.
Alex Toman, Robyn Neylon-Phillips, Cillian Harkin, Shauna McPartland, Sophie Robertson and Kyla Walsh make up the group.
Four out of the six participants are in the autism class in Portlaoise College so the BridgeAbility project is very close to their hearts
Due to the high quality of projects this year a record 37 teams will go to the finals where the winners will be announced.
Roger Warnock is the CEO of Young Social Innovations and spoke to the students at the awards.
He said: “This (competition) demonstrates the ongoing passion, creativity and commitment of our young people”.
He also mentioned in his speech how he was “blown away” by the research and expertise shown by the Laois students and how he was already looking forward to announcing the winners on May 9.
The students will be competing against students from 15 other counties to be named as winners of the prestigious competition.
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