GOAL awards

GOAL and its dedicated staff have had their efforts acknowledged with many awards through the years.

CEO of GOAL, John O Shea has won many awards including the ‘People of The Year Award’ (1987), ’Ballygowan Outstanding Achievement Award’ (1988), PCC Award (1990), MIR Award (1992), ‘Citizen of the Year’ (1992) and Humanitarian of the Year Award in 1993. There was also a special edition of the Late Late Show dedicated to John O'Shea in 1995. In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious ‘Tipperary International Peace Award’. Past recipients of the award include President Bill Clinton, Senator George Mitchell, Nelson Mandela, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Bob Geldof. In 2005, he was awarded Man of the Year by News of the World and named Ernst and Young 2005 Social Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2007, John was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor from the Open University for his services to the poorest of the poor in the developing world. And in 2008, John was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Notre Dame University in the United States.

Other members of GOAL who have had their dedication recognised include long time GOALie, Dr Mary McLoughlin, who was awarded the ‘People Of The Year Award’ in 1997. Ronan Scully from our West of Ireland team was awarded the ‘Galway Young Person of the Year’ (2004), the ‘Galway Mayor’s Award’ (2004) and was one of the receipients of the ‘Offaly Person Of The Year Award’ in 2005.

GOAL’s informal education programme, REFLECT, was awarded the UNESCO International Literacy Award in 2005. The programme was pioneered by GOAL in North Sudan but has since been implemented across numerous programme countries