School Name: Davis College, Mallow, Co. Cork
Project Name: Missing Persons
Award: Young Social Innovators of the Year 2011 - Silver Award

Award presented by Sr. Stanisalus Kennedy, Chairperson, YSI.

The aim of this project was to create awareness of missing persons in Ireland as the team felt that this was an issue that often gets overlooked or neglected.

The team held a full day workshop where the chairperson of searchingforthemissing.net spoke about the work of the organisation and a relative of a missing person spoke about her experience in relation to her missing brother-in-law. Mallow Search and Rescue and CERT (Countrywide Emergency and Rescue Team) were in attendance and spoke of their work in pursuing missing persons.

The students were trained by Mallow Search and Rescue and CERT who took them to a local wood where they were trained to be volunteer searchers. The team ran a Facebook campaign highlighting their project. Other innovative responses included the production of a calendar featuring images of missing people. The team secured the support of Tesco who will be stocking the calendar for sale in Tesco supermarkets nationwide. The team also developed an application for smartphones linking missing persons’ websites together. They designed bumper stickers which will be placed on the back of haulage companies’ trucks throughout Ireland spreading the message of their campaign even further.

Many partnerships were made with searchforthemissing.net; Mallow Search and Rescue; missingpersons.ie; missing.ws; Barnardos; CERT; Tesco, Barry Cummnis, RTÉ journalist and individuals whose loved ones have disappeared.

With the help and support of 25 other VEC secondary schools this team plans to roll out a vigil as a national event on the 26th of September at 2pm every year. Participating schools will receive pack with songs, poems and readings.

The judges said “This is an innovative project that included writing songs, poems, speaking to organizations, setting up a Face book page, smart phone applications and designing bumper stickers to raise awareness of the issue of missing persons.”