KERRY youth services are encouraged to apply for share of  a €600,000 made available to Rethink Ireland.

This will help children and young people to improve their use of technology through Rethink Ireland’s Children and Youth Digital Solutions Fund.

The Fund was officially launched on April 9 by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman TD.

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Rethink Ireland will partner with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on the one-year fund which is being delivered from April 2021 – March 2022.

The objective of the Fund is to support services who work with children and young people to enhance their efficiency, programme reach, collaboration and their data collection through the use of technology.

The Digital Solutions Fund will support up to eight projects/collaborations. Each Awardee will receive a cash grant (to a maximum of €50,000), mentoring support and a comprehensive six-month Accelerator programme.

The Accelerator Programme focuses on building Awardees’ capacity and equipping them to scale so they can reach more people in need of their work.

The Fund is open to organisations that have a not-for-profit legal form, e.g., a school, charity, social enterprise, voluntary organisation, or Higher Education Institution.

It will also be open to applications from Children and Young People’s Services Committees and Child and Family Support Networks, as key coordinating structures involving statutory and non-statutory agencies, and non-government organisations, in service delivery to children, young people and their families.

The successful applicant can be:

• A collaborative project with two or more organisations working together using technology to become more efficient in their communication and delivery of services to children and young people.
• A collaborative project with two or more organisations making innovative content for children/youth available and accessible online.
• A project that seeks to enhance the use of data and evidence in their service planning through digital solutions.
• An innovative IT/Digital project which aims to improve the digital literacy of children, young people and/or their parents in order to address the digital divide.

The Fund will be open for applications from today until Monday 17th May 2021 at noon. Further details are available on  https://rethinkireland.ie/