[As part of the 'Smart People, Smart Economy' youth conference, the US Embassy, in partnership with Foróige, sponsored an intensive three-day module for young leaders from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The SMART Youth Conference took place at the US Embassy from the 6th to the 8th November 2014. It began with the hosting of a lecture with Gay Byrne on the 6th November in the US Ambassador’s Residence. The overall aim of the module was to focus on youth leadership and the skills required to be successful in a 21st century workplace.]
The World Forum for Democracy took place in Strasbourg from the 3rd to the 5th November and two Foróige members, Lauren Lehane and Aisling O’Callaghan were in attendance. They are both active in Foróige’s youth participation initiatives and input regularly into the running of the organisation. They have also graduated from our Leadership programme.
Ten young people from Foróige in Blanchardstown and Tallaght were selected from our Techspace programme to attend the Web Summit! They interviewed a wide range of Web Summit attendees including entrepreneurs and CEOs. Danae Ringelmann, Founder and Chief Development Officer of Indiegogo (an international crowd-funding site) was interviewed by the young people and he spent lots of time answering their questions. They found the interviewing a little challenging at the outset but after a while, they couldn’t be stopped!
Ratoath Foróige are busy as always and just last week attended the Youth Citizenship Awards Final 2014 in Dublin Castle. To our absolute delight, our Slí na Sláinte (Path to Health) project won us the enormous victory. We are the first victors from Co. Meath and are extremely grateful.
A path to health community enhancement and fitness project, by Ratoath Foróige Club in County Meath, has been crowned winners of the Youth Citizenship Awards 2014.
The group was amongst the 12,000 young people from around the country who participated in the Foróige Youth Citizenship Programme this year.
Inspired by research into what their community needed, the group found there were no safe walking routes in their area and set the change in motion to create a looped 4km walk in the village, complete with bespoke signage and lighting.
Congratulations to all of our finalists who have carried out transformative, important work in their communities. They are an inspiration to everyone.
Announcing the finalists, Foróige's Head of Training Gerry McDonald said the standard of entries was extremely high this year and there was great variety in the projects.
"It is heartening to see that the Foróige Citizenship Programme is alive and well and living in communities all across Ireland. The standard of projects was extremely high this year and the team of judges found it extremely difficult to settle on the 8 finalists. A big well done to everybody who participated in the programme and entered the awards this year."
