Killybegs girls 'clean up' at ‘Youth Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2023’

Killybegs students Aimee Hegarty, Abbie Boyle and Aoife Smith from St Catherine’s Vocational School have just been announced as the overall winner of the Foróige NFTE ‘Youth Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2023’ at a ceremony held at Richmond Barracks, Dublin today.

They won the award in the ‘Best Business’ category for their innovative idea which involves beautiful authentic handmade soap called 'Simply Soap'.

The young entrepreneurs use a goat’s milk base which is rich in Vitamin E and highly moisturising to create these fabulous soaps in lavender, lemongrass vanilla and peppermint. The gorgeous scents are appealing to both men and women.

‘Simply Soap’ won the title after competing against over 6,000 young entrepreneurs from all over Ireland through a series of local, county, regional and semi-finals, with a total of 186 local competitions taking place, leading to 30 regional finals.

It will now go on to represent Ireland at the ‘European Youth Entrepreneur Awards’ in Austria later this year. 

Speaking about their success, the winning students said; ‘We are absolutely delighted to win this award and want to thank the judges and everyone who supported us along the way. We would highly recommend the ‘Foróige Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) Programme’ which teaches you the essential skills of developing a business from initial idea to creating a business plan.

"The whole experience has been brilliant and we are now looking forward to representing our county and Ireland at the ‘European Youth Entrepreneur Awards’ in Austria later this year."

National Finals

The national final saw the top nine young entrepreneurs in the ‘Best Business’ category have the opportunity to pitch their business to an expert panel of judges from some of Ireland's leading companies, as they battled it out to be crowned Foróige NFTE ‘Youth Entrepreneur of the Year 2023’.

In addition to the presentation of the overall ‘Youth Entrepreneur of the Year award’, there were three other award categories including two other Donegal entries: ‘Best Social Enterprise’, which was won by Patricia Poprawa, Marta Pazlinska and Tia Cooper from Scoil Mhuire, Buncrana for their business ‘Lil Phil’s’, and a ‘Special Recognition’ award was won by ‘Jolly Socks’, created by Jack Lafferty from Donegal.

Another Killybegs entry entitled Aspire was also taking part in the Best Business Category. It featured a unique brand of printed products from Conal Keeney 16, Ryan Hegarty 16, Adam Cunningham 16 and Eoghan Hegarty 16, Killybegs.

The ‘Best Innovation’ prize was won by Sarah Hegarty, from Grange School, Co. Sligo for her business ‘Girls in the Game’.

Each young person participating in the final proceeded through the ‘Foróige Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) Programme’, which involves approximately 40 hours of learning and includes the facilitation of a number of interactive sessions that enable young people to come up with a business idea, develop their product/service, design a business plan and trade in the real world.