Secondary education programmes

We offer five key secondary education programmes, as well as workshops and talks, for students to gain a deeper understanding of challenges that people are facing in communities all over the world.

Concern Active Citizenship is very excited to launch its first Summer Leadership Academy for young people aged 15 to 17 years.

Using design thinking, participants will be collaborating with well-known community partners to solve real world problems. Participants will also receive workshops on issues of social injustice and learn some very useful hard skills.

When & Where

28 June to 2 July Online

10am - 2:30pm

What will young people get out of it?

• Building relationships with well-known organisations
• Design thinking tools that will be very helpful in the future when trying to solve complex problems
• Meeting young people with similar interests
• Learning about complex issues and how to solve them
• Developing skills in media, pitching and presentation skills 

Applications for the Summer Leadership Programme are now closed. 

Concern Debates is an all-Ireland year long competition for senior cycle students. Each year, over 140 schools across the island of Ireland debate topics from climate change to corporate responsibility.

The programme gives students the opportunity to learn skills in research, critical thinking, and public speaking. It also helps students to reflect on, and try to tackle, some of the most important issues facing the world today. This year the programme is going online!

Interested in the Concern Debates?

Test your knowledge of the Sustainable Development goals and learn about Concerns work in the fight against extreme poverty with our new app!

How much do you know about the Sustainable Development Goals? Our new Concern Active app will test your knowledge and will help bring the SDGs to life by exploring them through the lens of Concern's work with the world's poorest people. 

TY Academy brings together young people who are interested in learning more about careers in development. Participants learn about various teams in Concern both overseas and in Ireland, and what their work entails. Sessions focus on work focusing on Climate, Emergencies and Gender Equality. 

Participants also develop a project during the academy which they present to judges for feedback on the last day.

They then have the option of doing a further action project which they present at the Agents of Change event at the end of the school year. 

Information for the sign up process for TY Academy for the academic year 2021-22 will be posted here and on our Concern Active Twitter and Instagram.

If you would like more information, please email: schools@concern.net

We offer free development education workshops and talks for secondary schools on a range of challenges facing the communities which Concern work in around the world. The themes that we cover include poverty, hunger, gender equality, climate change and conflict. In an hour long workshops, students will consider why these problems exist in the world today, how they impact on people’s lives and reflect on how they can take action on this issue.

This year, all of our workshops are moving online! We will work with individual schools and the context that you are working in to provide workshops on a platform of your choice and in a way that works best for your students.

Interested in hosting a school talk or workshop? 

Learning out about what is happening in the world is important - taking action is the next step!

Speak Act Do is our programme to support students and teachers to take action on local and global issues in a simple way that suits you and your schools context.

The programme is flexible and made to fit into whatever time or classes that you have in the coming academic year 2021/22.

For any further queries regarding Speak Act Do, please email: schools@concern.net

Interested in Speak Act Do for your school? Find information and resources here.

The programme will kick off again in September 2021, but the resources are available all year round to support you to take action on the SDGs!

Interested in learning more?

Project Us is Concern’s movement for change in Ireland. It is a space (online and off) for communities to gather together to discuss the global and local issues that matter most to us.

For teachers, we are organising World Café’s online to explore how issues at the local level connect to the Sustainable Development Goals. These are beneficial to teachers of any subject and of any age group to reflect on issues which may come up in Global Citizenship Education, how to tackle inequalities both locally and globally, as well as a chance to boost your knowledge and understanding of issues such as hunger, gender equality and climate change.