Awards to GOAL
GOAL and its dedicated staff have often had their efforts towards helping the poorest of the poor acknowledged.
Awards to GOAL CEO John O'Shea include:
(1987 and 1992) People of the Year
(1988) Ballygowan Outstanding Achievement
(1990) Publicity Club of Ireland Communications
(1992) MIR Award
(1992) Dun Laoghaire Citizen of the Year
(1993) Association of Tennis Professionals Humanitarian of the Year
(1995) Texaco Outstanding Achievement
(2004) The Tipperary International Peace - Past recipients include Bill Clinton, George Mitchell, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Bob Geldof.
(2005) Ernst and Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year
(2008) Freedom of Westport
Membership of The Medical Society, University College Dublin, for humanitarian work
(2011) James Joyce Award from the University College of Dublin Literary and Historical Society
Honorary Doctorates:
(2007) from The Open University for services to the poorest of the poor in the developing world.
(2008) from Notre Dame University (USA) for decades of humanitarian work.
Other GOAL recipients of awards:
Dr. Mary McLoughlin:(1997) People of the Year Award
(2006) University College Cork Medical School Medal
Read more about Dr. Mary McLoughlin on our Meet the GOALies section.
GOAL programme awards:
UNESCO REFLECT award
In 2005, GOAL won an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its REFLECT Women’s Literacy Programme, conducted amongst displaced communities in Sudan. The programme was pioneered by GOAL in Sudan, and is now used by over 500 organisations in more than 70 countries worldwide.
The UNESCO prizes are awarded annually in recognition of particularly effective contributions to the fight against illiteracy, particularly in the developing world, one of UNESCO’s priorities.
Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques (REFLECT) is a participatory, community approach to adult literacy that utilises the existing knowledge of the participants, and links their life experiences and everyday realities to learning.
In a REFLECT programme there is no textbook and no printed materials, just a locally devised manual for the facilitators, which is regularly reviewed to incorporate improvements from lessons learned. The manual comprises graphics relevant to the needs and interests of the beneficiaries, and is based on an analysis of socio-economic and socio-cultural surveys that have already been conducted in a target area.
The award-winning GOAL programme has helped raise considerably the literacy levels, and thereby the self-confidence, of thousands of war-displaced formerly illiterate women. In turn, the newly-empowered women, such as the three ladies from one of our REFLECT programmes in the community of Dar Es-Salaam outside Khartoum in North Sudan, right, have helped enhance the welfare prospects of vulnerable families, and assisted in the recovery of communities by enabling them to better meet their needs.
As a direct result of GOAL’s RELECT programmes, groups have begun identifying problems and taking basic actions such as establishing nursery schools, local markets and small shops in isolated areas, and initiating various income generating activities.
Certificate from the Government of Sri LankaIn 2007, the Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka presented GOAL with a certificate to mark the completion of The Tsunami School Reconstruction Project. GOAL had successfully reconstructed 62 tsunami-affected schools in the Ampara District of Sri Lanka, in the wake of the south-east Asian Tsunami. Commenting on GOAL’s work, the Sri Lankan education minister remarked to John O’Shea that it would have taken the Sri Lankan government 20 years to achieve what GOAL had managed in only 10 months.
Letter of appreciation to GOAL from the UN’s World Food Programme
In 2010, the UN’s World Food Programme representative in Haiti, Myrta Kaulard, wrote to John O’Shea to congratulate GOAL on the part it played in distributing life-saving rations to 3.5 million people in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. “This is a tremendous accomplishment that would not have been possible without the professional support and commitment of your organisation,” wrote Myrta Kaulard.