02/04/2008 -

Mayor Attends Young Social Innovators Forum

Mayor Councillor Jonathan McGoldrick, Cathaoirleach Councillor Seamus Kilgannon and Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny attended the launch of Ireland’s Young Social Innovators ‘Speak Out’ event in the Clarion Hotel, Sligo on February 21st last. Young Social Innovators were established in 2001 to promote social awareness and activism among young people whereby they could identify, discuss and improve or solve issues through educational frameworks. The ‘Speak Out’ was first held in 2006 and this year there are 8 regional events throughout the country.

The purpose of these ‘Speak Outs’ is to raise awareness and to enable young people to communicate issues important to them across the community in creative ways. The young social innovators do this in a pre-prepared two minute piece presented through various mediums such as drama, dance, mime, visual displays and props.

The Mayor Councillor Jonathan McGoldrick was delighted to launch the Young Social Innovators Forum and commended Rachel Collier and her colleagues for developing and organising the ‘Speak Out’ event. The Mayor talks about the challenges facing the young social innovators in tackling their objectives which are to ‘re-appraise the way we care for others in society, with the over-riding objective of creating a better world for us all.’

Albeit  ‘a worthy vision’ for the young people involved, the Mayor sees the forum as having the commitment and ambition ‘in evolving a mechanism to harness and focus these energies, and in the process establish a conduit for fostering meaningful debate.’ With increased access to news and information through new technologies young people can communicate their concerns to each other and as mayor McGoldrick points out this is key to the teamwork attitude prevalent in the Young Social Innovators Forum. He concludes by commending the forum for providing a platform for young people ‘to convey your message to key influencers such as business, civic, tourist and community leaders.’