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Kinsale not-for-profit project scoops social entrepreneurs award

November 16th, 2017 11:50 AM

By Kieran O'Mahony

Donal Murphy of DCC with Colin Healy and James Lyons of Sailing into Wellness from Kinsale with Darren Ryan of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Grainne Bagnall and Alice D'Arcy of STEAM Education, Cork at the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awards. (Photo: Naoise Culhane)

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A Kinsale not-for-profit social enterprise that offers sail training programmes for community groups working in youth, addiction and mental health fields has, along with six other groups, won a nationwide competition through Socia

By Kieran O’Mahony

A KINSALE not-for-profit social enterprise that offers sail training programmes for community groups working in youth, addiction and mental health fields has, along with six other groups, won a nationwide competition through Social Entrepreneurs Ireland (SEI).

Sailing into Wellness, run by James Lyons from Kinsale and Colin Healy from Mallow, were awarded for their exhilarating and therapeutic sailing programme for vulnerable or marginalised groups. 

Along with six other social entrepreneurs, they will now share funding and support worth over €450,000 from private investors

Earlier this year, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland launched a nationwide competition searching for big ideas to solve Ireland’s social problems. 

From hundreds of applications received, seven winning entrepreneurs were announced last month. 

This year’s winners tackle a wide variety of problems through their innovative projects and also include Alice D’Arcy and Grainne Bagnall from Cork based STEAM Education, which is a programme aimed at bringing Stem subjects and the arts into the classroom.

Speaking at the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Awards,  chief executive Darren Ryan said the awardees are ‘ambitious, driven people with innovative solutions to Ireland’s social problems.They find solutions to gaps in services. This is a recognised approach in the commercial sector. We take the same approach to gaps in services in the social sector. 

‘We look for people with innovative approaches to tackle the issues that are affecting Irish people across the country and we can give them the support to scale their impact and effectiveness,’ said Darren.

DDC plc, the international sales, marketing and support services group, is the flagship supporter of the awards and SEI’s largest and longest-standing corporate partner.

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