Mullingar woman wins place on €500,000 accelerator programme

Mullingar woman Helene Hugel has won a place on Social Entrepreneurs Ireland’s (SEI) Changing Ireland Accelerator, for her work supporting children and young people with lifelong physical illnesses.

Helium Arts received backing from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in 2009, when the organisation had one full time employee, Helene Hugel.

Now, Helene has 25 professional artists and 55 trained and vetted volunteers supporting her in community and hospital workshops, positively impacting almost 3,000 children all over Ireland.

Helium Arts has recently launched free summer camps for children in Galway living with lifelong health conditions this July.

With the head office is in Mullingar, Helium Arts have established three ‘Creative Health Hubs’ centralised around Galway, Limerick and Cork Cities where they work both in hospitals and in community settings.

The community work extends to surrounding counties totalling, including Galway, Limerick & Cork City, as well as locally in Mallow, Ennis, Nenagh, and Castlebar. Their goal is to establish a fourth community hub in Dublin to serve Kildare, Louth, Wicklow and Meath.

In Ireland, there are 120,000 children and teenagers living every day with the long-term effects of illness. The impact of living with lifelong health conditions on young people includes isolation, loneliness, anxiety and depression. They often feel like their lives are defined by their condition. Helene offers free, specially designed art workshops for children and young people (age 6-18) living with a lifelong physical health condition – supported by professional artists, volunteers and on-site medical care.

The Changing Ireland Accelerator is a €500,000 investment from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland (SEI), supported by Google.org and in collaboration with INCO, into nationally scaling organisations supporting underserved and/or underrepresented communities in Ireland.

Commenting, Helene said “Life can be tough for a child with a lifelong health condition. The Changing Ireland Accelerator programme let us deepen our reach to more children in more places in Ireland and to reach those who need us most.“

SEI chose Helene Hugel from more than 70 high potential applications, leveraging its nearly 20 years of experience in identifying the highest potential social entrepreneurs. The interview process combines the expertise of more than 300 entrepreneurs, Irish business leaders, technical consultants and corporate partners. The four chosen organisations demonstrated a well-proven model to tackle a significant social issue affecting the people of Ireland and will benefit from the €500,000 programme to scale and grow their organisation beyond its current level.