Young innovators aim to educate teens on organ donation

Students from Co Meath who hope to educate teenagers nationwide about organ donation were yesterday named as the Young Social Innovators of the Year 2013.

More than 20 transition- year students from Eureka Secondary School, Kells, are producing a teaching pack they hope will be distributed to schools this Christmas.

One of the students, Niamh Grall, 16, said: “We found that the reason people don’t become organ donors is because they don’t know enough about the issue... Our pack will help educate people and there will be organ donor cards included in it.”

Runners-up at the 12th annual showcase supported by the Vodafone Ireland Foundation were students from John The Baptist Community School, Hospital, Co Limerick, whose project, Click, has been driving home the road safety message.

“Our project this year is called ‘Click’ because we noticed a lot of students were not wearing their seat belts when travelling on the school bus,” said Edel Durcan, 16.

“We want to make seatbelt wearing a natural reaction when travelling in a bus or car,” said Nicole Hayes, 16.

Also at the event, attended by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, were last year’s winners from Davis College, Mallow, Co Cork, whose project, Forget Me Not, will be taken a step further this December when the first ever national day for missing people takes place.

This year 5,500 students took part in the social innovation programme and undertook over 350 projects, 60 of which were short-listed to present at yesterday’s showcase in the Citywest Hotel Dublin.