Irish Teens Win Youth Entrepreneur of the Year Awards
12th November 2015
Five Donegal teenagers have been named European Youth Entrepreneurs of the Year 2015 at a ceremony in Budapest, Hungary.
Mary Kate Carr (16), Aimée Byrne (17), Rebecca McShane (16), Paddy McShane (16) and Ronan O’Hare (15) from Carrick in Donegal won the award for their business ‘Milseog na Mara’.
This means Desserts of the Sea in Gaeilge, and offers healthy alternatives to jellies and chocolate mousse using a type of locally sourced seaweed – Carrageen Moss – as the main ingredient.
The competition is hosted by YouthStart, European Entrepreneurship Award – an affiliate of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship in Budapest, which is run in Ireland by Foróige – Ireland’s leading youth organisation. Earlier this year, the group were named the Youth Entrepreneurs of the Year 2015 in Ireland and they represented their country on the European stage.
Ireland has now been honoured at the European awards for three consecutive years. In Ireland, a total of 1,500 participants set up 600 businesses as part of this year’s Foróige NFTE entrepreneurship programme, generating a collective turnover of €250,000. The programme runs from September to May every year.
Research carried out by NFTE among 3,600 young people who participated in the programme found that 70% of all participants have found a job, either as an employee or an entrepreneur. The survey also shows that each NFTE entrepreneur in turn employs an average of 3.5 people.
