Mayo woman named Social Entrepreneur Ireland changemaker

Castlebar’s Ciara Mangan has been announced as one of five social entrepreneurs to win a place on the prestigious 2025 Impact Programme and Ideas Academy.

Speaking to The Mayo News, she said that “we’re delighted to be supported by SEI. It’s going to open a lot of doors.”

The announcement on Monday will see Beyond Surviving join the Impact Programme, SEI’s nine-month accelerator designed to help social entrepreneurs strengthen their leadership, build organisational capacity, and identify their route to scale for long-term impact.

There is also €20,000 direct funding for Beyond Surviving, which will be used to build up the advocacy pillar of the organisation, among other key areas of the business.

READ MORE: “When your life is on hold for all of those years, you’re not living, you’re just surviving.”

Ciara set up Beyond Surviving in 2023 as a survivor-led organisation providing post-crisis support and community connection for survivors of sexual violence and domestic abuse, filling a critical gap in Ireland’s support services.

“Survivors and volunteers are just really eager to use their own voices now and speak for themselves. They feel like they're the experts of their own lives, and they want to shape policy and shape change themselves, as opposed to being spoken for. They want to be the decision makers of the things that actually impact their lives themselves. And that's really empowering.”

More than the direct funding, she is particularly excited about benefiting from the expertise and support from people who know how to scale an organisation. 

She explains that having a sound board and people to bounce ideas off will be a big help, as “you can get stuck in your own head” as a solo founder. 

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After a very competitive process, over eighty applicants were narrowed down over three stages to the five social changemakers.

“I'm really delighted to be alongside the other social entrepreneurs as well. They're doing really incredible work.”

“Your own brain can only take you so far. You need other people and other people's insights and perspectives to challenge your thinking. It's just access to other people's brains that I'm so excited about. It's really gonna help me to really expand how I approach things and think differently as well.”

 'I wouldn't be where we are today without them'

“This is the start of the growth phase for us,” Ciara explains. 

Over the last two years, she has been blown away by both the number and drive of the volunteers who have joined Beyond Surviving. 

From measuring impact to collecting data and fundraising, the volunteers have been crucial in making the organisation tick. 

“We have a great number of volunteers, and I wouldn't be where we are today without them. They do so much work with me. The drive of the volunteers has been really astonishing.”

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