Young entrepreneurs from Kilbeggan and Moate qualify for national enterprise finals

Teenage entrepreneurs from Mercy Secondary School Kilbeggan and Moate Community College will represent Westmeath at this year’s Student Enterprise Programme National Finals in May.

In the senior category of the competition, Westmeath will be represented at the national finals on May 18 by Summer Feery and Lauren O'Reilly from ‘Framed It’, an entry from Mercy Secondary School, Kilbeggan. In the junior category, the students representing Westmeath at the National Finals will be Moate Community School students Hannah Higgins, Katie Creggy, Erin Roche and Muireann Lowry from ‘Decorapage'. The finals return to being a physical event this year at The Helix in Dublin having been held online in 2020 and 2021.

The Westmeath final took place on March 11 at the Golden Island Shopping Centre, Athlone. An estimated 160 students from 9 school took part in the annual programme locally.

Special guests at the Westmeath Final included Pat Gallagher, Chief Executive of Westmeath County Council and our judges David Quirke, Wholesome Kitchen, Mullingar, Brendan Gearon, Drakemount Ltd. and Tracey Tallon, Senior Enterprise Development Officer, LEO Westmeath.

Speaking at the county final, Catherine Darby, Business Advisor of Local Enterprise Office Westmeath congratulated the students, saying: “We have a very successful student enterprise programme here in Westmeath, with over 400 students from nine local schools taking part this year. Our national finalists are excellent ambassadors for the programme, and we wish them the very best of luck on Friday May 18, and we will all hope to be there to support them. In what has been a particularly challenging couple of years for students the programme has offered them an outlet outside of the usual school demands. What our students are learning from the programme is that with the right supports and encouragement, they can take an idea from the classroom and develop it into a real-life business. The skills they learn along the way, such as business planning, market research, selling and team-work, will help them become more entrepreneurial throughout their future careers”.

The enterprise education initiative, funded by the Government of Ireland through Enterprise Ireland and delivered by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices in local authorities throughout the country, saw over 24,000 students from just under 500 secondary schools across the country take part in 2020 / 2021. The programme supports students to create, design and market their own business, all with the hope of reaching the National Finals.

The local students will be competing against hundreds of other student entrepreneurs from all over Ireland at the Student Enterprise Programme National Finals, taking place at the Helix in Dublin on May 18.

Since the Student Enterprise Programme began in 2003, over 300,000 students have taken part, learning key skills on how to create a business idea, start a business and grow a business. The Student Enterprise Programme also has new range of online resources for 2021 / 2022 at www.StudentEnterprise.ie, which will feature regular blogs and houses a full range of Student Enterprise resources for students and teachers.

Further information around the Student Enterprise Programme is available from www.studententerprise.ie and by searching #studententerprise on social media.