Last week we celebrated the success and impact of our Inspire Mentoring programme in Ireland. The Innovate Communities team wish to thank everyone who has been with us on this exciting journey, to develop a social innovation idea into a thriving national service for our Irish youth. This is social innovation in practice; beautiful, sustainable, together (#neweuropeanbauhaus)!
Background
Inspire Mentoring is a unique social innovation that grew out of our work with young people in Ballymun and Finglas. They told us that they lacked additional support when in education and did not have access to professional contacts or networks. Using these insights, Inspire Mentoring was launched as a pilot programme in 2020 with 35 mentors and mentees.
Our aim is to connect marginalised young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with a professional who has volunteered to become a mentor.
We provide a digital platform and structure to facilitate excellent mentoring.
Inspire Mentoring addresses the twin issues of Social Mobility and Social Capital. Specifically, that there are generations of young, talented people who lack the Social Mobility and Social Capital that results in equality of opportunity. Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not.
