By Michelle Crean

It was no easy task walking in to a Dragons' Den style set up - but by doing that Killarney teens received funds for their projects.

WINNING WITH WOMEN: Young Social Innovators from St Brigid's School took part in the YSI Dragons' Den on Thursday last. The Winning With Women group includes: Caoilfhionn Doyle Sophie Moran and Aoibhín Kelly. At the back are: Muireann O'Brien Gráinne Byrne Sorcha Blackwell and Sadhh Teahan.

On Thursday last two Transition Year Young Social Innovator (YSI) groups from St Brigid's Presentation pitched their ideas to a panel of representatives, including from Dublin City Council, Community Foundation Ireland and EirGrid, to enable them to access Social Impact Fund support to advance their projects.

The group ‘Tictock’ includes Ellie Greene and Anna Whyte who are the creative producers, Jennie O'Mahony and Lorna O'Sullivan research and development executives, Grace O'Meara and Seodhla Colleran coordinators of the group, Leah Griffin and Laura Flynn, financial controllers.

‘Tictock’ aims to raise awareness of the impacts of Ticks and Lymes Disease in the Killarney area. The students pitched their project to a team of five judges and were successfully awarded funding of €700 to help them resource signs for the National Park and Tick removal kits for local schools and shops. They also received links to Kerry County Council to help them proceed with these ideas.

Up next was 'Winning With Women', a YSI project aiming to tackle gender inequality in sports.
The team is made up of Caoilfhionn Doyle, Sophie Moran, Aoibhín Kelly, Muireann O'Brien, Gráinne Byrne, Sorcha Blackwell and Sadhh Teahan.

The team presented their idea for designing a pair of sports shorts specifically for women's bodies, a need which they identified based on their own experience of taking part in sports. They were awarded funding to design and create a prototype of sports shorts that are tailored to women's bodies, and to launch a campaign to bring attention to the issue of the need for sports clothing and equipment to be tailored to women doing sport. They will also receive mentoring in social media and marketing.

"The project pitch was very well received by the judges with the girls awarded €800 to fund their campaign and ideas," their teacher, Catherine O'Donoghue, said.

“The innovative ideas awarded Social Impact Fund support through our Social Innovation Den this year show how strongly engaged our young people are when it comes to the pressing and relevant issues impacting on people and society today," Roger Warnock, CEO of Young Social Innovators, said.

"We are delighted to help advance these inspirational youth-led projects further through the provision of direct support."