Welcome to all young people, educators, schools, youth reach centres and youth services who are taking part in the YSI programmes this year.

This year is very exciting as we celebrate our tenth anniversary and reflect on the participation of some 35,000 young people and over 50% of second level schools in Ireland. The commitment to education for social innovation is growing stronger every year. In these challenging times there is a more urgent need than ever to use people’s creativity to develop responses which improve the well being of people and communities. This is what social innovation is about.

By taking part in YSI programmes, you are enabling young people to practice social innovation and creating an innovative learning culture. This, we believe, can be an essential part of young people’s development and growth. In the longer term, widespread education for social innovation has, no doubt, the potential to enable all of us to find ways of addressing large scale societal challenges such as climate change, social justice, poverty and exclusion, unemployment and many more issues.

We wish you the best and the YSI team look forward to meeting you throughout the year!