Dundalk students raise awareness of cyberbullying

Dundalk students were among the 186 school groups taking part in the ‘Young Social Innovators Speak Out Tour’ which had a whistlestop tour in Louth last week.

The ‘Speak Out’ tour, is part of the YSI of the Year awards which challenge young people to think differently and come up with ways to tackle social issues affecting them and their communities.

Students from De La Salle Secondary attended the event with their project ‘Cybernauts’ which aimed to create awareness around the growing dangers of cyberbullying.

The Dundalk team are now hoping they will be among just eleven who are expected to be shortlisted to compete for the national title of Young Social Innovators of the Year in May in the Convention Centre, Dublin.

CEO of Young Social Innovators, Rachel Collier explained how the Louth event reached out to young people .

‘YSI events empower young people to be social innovators recognising and harnessing their talents and ideas to address social need.’

She added: ‘Giving young people opportunities to really consider the world around them and to innovate on issues that matter to them gives them skills for life and work as well as an understanding that what they do matters to society.

The enthusiasm we see year on year during the Speak Out Tour shows there is a huge appetite among young people in Ireland for social justice and fairness, in particular in this time of huge social upheaval across the world.’

‘Our recently launched strategy outlines our goal that by 2020, we want to see that half of Ireland’s teenagers have the necessary skills to use their talent, knowledge and resources to find solutions to these large issues in society.’

‘We are grateful to Ulster Bank for their support and look forward to increasing our reach and impact into the future.’