Belfast's Inspire Youth Awards Celebrate Over 110 Young Volunteers as AXA Community Heroes Honour Ireland's Unsung Champions
More than 110 young people were recognised at Belfast's inaugural Inspire Youth Awards ceremony, with Cora O'Hara taking the top Young Leader Award for ten years of sustained volunteering, while the AXA Community Hero Awards separately honoured four individuals across Ireland with €20,000 each for transformative work in mental health support, domestic abuse services, urban sustainability, and road victim advocacy.
Background
Volunteerism has always been a defining feature of Irish civic life, from the GAA clubs that depend entirely on unpaid labour to the community organisations that fill the gaps left by underfunded statutory services. But the scale and diversity of voluntary activity across the island is rarely captured in a single moment — it tends to be invisible, taken for granted, and underreported. Awards schemes like the Inspire Youth Awards and the AXA Community Hero programme exist precisely to make that invisible work visible, and to signal to communities that the contributions of their most dedicated members are seen and valued.
The Inspire Youth Awards, launched in Belfast this year as an inaugural event, were designed to recognise young people aged between 16 and 25 who have made a demonstrable positive impact on their communities. The awards were organised in partnership with several Belfast-based youth organisations and supported by local businesses and statutory bodies. The decision to create a dedicated youth awards scheme reflects a recognition that young people in Belfast — often portrayed in media coverage as victims of deprivation or perpetrators of disorder — are in fact among the most active and committed volunteers in the city.
The AXA Community Hero Awards, now in their third year, operate on a national basis and are open to individuals across the island of Ireland. The scheme was established by AXA Insurance to recognise people who have shown exceptional leadership and creativity in addressing social challenges in their communities. The €20,000 prize attached to each award is intended to be invested in the winner's charity or community project, amplifying the impact of their work.
Key Developments
Cora O'Hara's Young Leader Award at the Inspire Youth Awards was the centrepiece of a ceremony that celebrated the breadth of youth volunteering in Belfast. O'Hara, who has been volunteering since the age of 15, has been involved in a range of community initiatives spanning youth mentoring, environmental projects, and cross-community sports programmes. Her decade of sustained commitment — maintained through school, further education, and the disruptions of the pandemic years — was cited by judges as exemplary of the kind of long-term engagement that creates lasting community change.
The other 110-plus young people recognised at the ceremony represented an equally impressive range of activity. Youth workers, sports coaches, arts facilitators, environmental campaigners, and peer support volunteers were all represented, drawn from communities across Belfast including North Belfast, West Belfast, East Belfast, and South Belfast. The geographic spread was deliberate — the organisers were keen to demonstrate that youth volunteering is not confined to any one part of the city or any one community background.
The AXA Community Hero Awards, meanwhile, recognised four individuals whose work addresses some of the most pressing social challenges in Ireland. Leona O'Callaghan of The Haven Hub in Limerick has built a mental health support service that operates outside the formal HSE system, providing accessible, community-based support to people who might not engage with statutory services. Mary Doherty of Lifeline Inishowen in Donegal has spent years working with survivors of domestic abuse in one of Ireland's most rural and isolated regions. Scott Bryan of Community Roots in Dublin has developed an urban sustainability programme that combines environmental education with social inclusion work. Donna Price of the Irish Road Victims Association has channelled personal tragedy into advocacy, supporting families bereaved by road deaths and campaigning for safer roads.
Why It Matters
The timing of both awards is significant. Belfast has been in the news in recent weeks for deeply troubling reasons — the anti-immigrant disorder of June, the ongoing PSNI funding crisis, the stalled Casement Park project. Against that backdrop, the Inspire Youth Awards offer a different and equally true picture of the city: one populated by young people who are choosing to invest their time and energy in making their communities better, rather than tearing them apart.
This is not to minimise the real challenges Belfast faces. But it is to insist on the complexity of the city's story. For every act of disorder that makes the headlines, there are dozens of acts of quiet, sustained community service that do not. The Inspire Youth Awards are a corrective to that imbalance — a deliberate effort to ensure that the young people who are doing the right thing receive at least some of the recognition that is routinely lavished on those who are not.
The AXA awards, meanwhile, highlight the geographic spread of community leadership across Ireland. From Inishowen in the far north of Donegal to Limerick city, from Dublin's inner suburbs to the national road network, the four winners represent communities that are very different in character but united by the presence of individuals who have decided to take responsibility for the wellbeing of those around them.
Local Impact
In Belfast, the Inspire Youth Awards have already generated interest from youth organisations in other parts of Northern Ireland who are considering whether a similar model could work in their areas. Derry, Newry, and Armagh all have active youth volunteering sectors that are rarely celebrated in the same way, and the success of the Belfast event has prompted conversations about a potential province-wide awards scheme.
For the individual AXA winners, the €20,000 prize represents a significant injection of resources into organisations that typically operate on shoestring budgets. The Haven Hub in Limerick has indicated it will use the funding to expand its drop-in service, which currently operates on limited hours due to staffing constraints. Lifeline Inishowen plans to invest in transport — a critical issue in rural Donegal, where the absence of public transport can make it impossible for domestic abuse survivors to access support services without a car.
Community Roots in Dublin will use its award to develop a new programme targeting young people in areas of the city that have been left behind by the tech-driven economic boom, while the Irish Road Victims Association will invest in expanding its peer support network for bereaved families, a service that currently has a waiting list.
What's Next
The Inspire Youth Awards organisers have confirmed that the event will become an annual fixture in Belfast's community calendar, with plans already underway for the 2027 ceremony. They have also indicated an ambition to expand the scheme to include a category specifically recognising cross-community volunteering — work that brings together young people from different backgrounds — reflecting the particular importance of that kind of activity in the Belfast context.
AXA has confirmed that the Community Hero Awards will continue in 2027, with applications expected to open in early spring. The company has also indicated it is exploring whether the scheme could be expanded to include a category specifically recognising young community heroes — a development that would create a natural link with initiatives like the Inspire Youth Awards.
For the winners themselves, the recognition is both an end and a beginning. Several have spoken about how the awards have given them the confidence and the resources to think bigger about what their organisations can achieve — a multiplier effect that extends the impact of the awards well beyond the ceremony itself.
