Worth €10 million, the Youth Fund is the largest Rethink Ireland Fund to date. The Fund is made up of 50% private philanthropic funding, self-raised by 15 Awardees. The other half comes from Government, through the Department of Rural and Community Development from the Dormant Accounts Fund.

The 2018 Youth Fund, includes the Youth Education Fund and Youth Mental Health Fund and was designed to support projects addressing the most prevalent issues facing young people in Ireland.

The Awardees each receive a multi-year grant and will also be granted a place on Rethink Ireland’s ‘Game-Changer’ Programme which includes training, capacity building and participation in a three year academic evaluation. Proving and improving their impact, these projects have strong potential to be replicated across Ireland with a view to creating a community of innovators who have the collective ability to create systemic change.

Deirdre Mortell, CEO, Rethink Ireland said: “Firstly, I’d like to congratulate all of today’s Awardees. Each one of the projects awarded today are helping change the lives of children and young people in Ireland and being able to support them with these new funds is fantastic.

“For the younger generations of Ireland, education and mental health are closely intertwined and supporting individuals who struggle in one of these areas will inherently support them in the other. We all know that if we struggle at school, we feel bad; and if we struggle with our mental health, we can’t learn. We were blown away by the breadth of work each of the awardees is undertaking and we can’t wait to support them to deepen and spread their impact over the next 3 years.’’

Terence O’Rourke, Board Director, Rethink Ireland said: “Today’s awardees are a fantastic depiction of the amazing work non-profit organisations are carrying out across the country on a daily basis. There is everything from music-based projects to help young people deal with anxiety to projects promoting the importance of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education for future career opportunities.

“All of these projects are making a real difference in supporting young people in Ireland to achieve their very best and I’m proud to play a part in it.”