Challenge Bank

Do you have a Challenge in your area that you think could be solved through Design Thinking? Take the next step in your Challenger journey by adding it to the bank!

Courses will be based on the Challenges that people like you, across the region, feel need fresh and innovative thinking. To do this, we’re asking everyone to submit the Challenges that they’d like to tackle collaboratively.

Like and comment on other people's Challenges to show support and increase its chance of being included in a Course. You can filter Challenges by county or category.

Roll over a Challenge for more details. Click to go to the Challenge and like it or leave a comment.

Click to go to the Challenge and like it or leave a comment.

add new challenge

Vacant Houses could be Happy Homes

Housing department Co Council, vacant property owners and potential tenants approved for HAP work to gather to access grants to renovate vacant houses into homes for struggling homeless, and housing waiting list members

Leitrim

Promote the benefits of Diversity and combat Racism.

Promote the benefits of Diversity and combat Ra...

Recognise the benefits of different cultures of migrants now living in our communities and help integrate new migrants into our local communities. In addition to promote a zero tolerance to Racism.

Louth

Slieve Rushen House Community Development Project

The house and lands holds great potential for the local area. Over the years, there has been some thinking about how this could be transformed to create a cross-border and cross-community heritage and habitat border park. However, there’s nothing set in cement yet! The opportunity is for local communities to lay out their ideas and needs in order to build these into the plan and to think about how the wider area can benefit. Slieve Rushen might be just one part of any plan for the wider area that could come from this exercise. The focus will be open for local people to drive it forward and to partner with key organisations on developing ideas into possible solutions.

Cavan

Creation of pocket forests in the border areas area

Creation of pocket forests in the border areas ...

Work with https://www.pocketforests.ie/ to RECONNECT PEOPLE WITH NATURE in border communities. They reconnect people with nature through education workshops to rejuvenate soil and grow native trees, shrubs and woodland flowers to bring a forest ecosystem to your community. WHAT IS A POCKET FORESTS. forests in small spaces. special method of growing small biodiverse forests.

Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan, Louth

Health Care Forests

Inspire and support healthcare sites in transforming their green space for health, wellbeing and biodiversity. Ideas include beautiful gardens for rest and recovery; woodland, orchards and meadows that lock up carbon and create habitats for wildlife; and growing space for fruit and veg. https://nhsforest.org/ lots of evidence about the benefits linking nature and well being. Also lots of examples of projects in action to learn from. Can link into social prescription projects.

Monaghan, Louth

Setting up a cross border biodiversity campagin group

Setting up a cross border biodiversity campagin...

Species and habitats don't know borders. Bringing together groups and people interested in Biodiversity to become one voice for the need for more joined up thinking from funders to provide funding for cross border Biodiversity projects. Creating an cross border Biodiversity action plan using the all ireland pollinators plan to build on.

Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan, Louth

Electrical bike and vehicle hire in dundalk and surrounding local villages

Electrical bike and vehicle hire in dundalk and...

https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/voi-electric-bike-and-scooter-trial https://www.ufodrive.com/en/ https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/visiting/getting-to-the-lake-district/electric-car-hire-and-charging-points-in-the-lake-district. With more people working from home, using park and ride, could we reduce cars per household down to one car by offering rental of electrical bikes/ cars. Used as an marketing for tourism as well.

Monaghan, Louth

Social Enterprises Louth - Shared economy concept

Would you like to find out how the Social Enterprise sector in Louth could explore opportunities to build a stronger more collaborative social economy in Louth? Are you familiar with the term 'Collaborative or Sharing Economy? Would you like to find out more about it? this course will look at how social enterprises in Louth can come together to co-operate, pool and collaborate to access resources, lower costs and look at new and more innovative ways of doing things.

Louth

Drogheda Community Fridge

A Community Fridge in Drogheda Town where people can help themselves for free. Indivuduals and businesses can donate surplus food to the fridge to tackle the huge issue of food waste. Volunteers help run the scheme with the help of Co Louth council.

Louth

Bowls in the Community

Lawn Bowls is a sport ‘EVERYONE’ can play no matter age, colour, fitness level, disability, it’s a sport that can be adapted to suit everyone. We currently run an Inclusive bowl’s session every Monday morning from 11am - 1pm but I’m sure there is loads of people in care homes, retirement homes, schools and colleges around the county of Sligo that we could travel to and put on a session for them making them feel involved and giving them a new challenge. All our coaches are Garda vetted and have their safeguarding courses done so it wouldn’t take a lot for this idea to take off.

Leitrim, Sligo

Mohill to Ballinamore Cavan - Leitrim Rail Trail and McGahern experience

Mohill to Ballinamore Cavan - Leitrim Rail Trai...

This programme will examine how local community groups in Mohill Gorvagh Fenagh and Ballinamore can progress the development of the Cavan Leitrim Rail trail project between Mohill and Ballinamore and also a take forward the thinking and concept of developing a "McGahern experience" in the space and place where John McGahern was born, lived and died and of which he wrote so much about and its people.

Leitrim

Roller-Skate Rink in County Monaghan

Identify a group or individuals who may be interested in developing a roller-skating rink in County Monaghan. Perhaps making use of buildings that are not in use; for example, along the N2, there is a car dealership building that is no longer in use.

Monaghan

Ensuring sewage treatment for Dunfanaghy appropriate to present and to future needs.

Ensuring sewage treatment for Dunfanaghy approp...

As above.

Donegal

Visual Food Menus for Adults with Intellectual disabilities

Visual Food Menus for Adults with Intellectual...

I work within a residential setting in Sligo with adults with an intellectual disability. An area we find challenging for adults with ID is not being able to read a menu when out socially in Sligo or indeed in most counties in Ireland. Inclusion in our society/ community should be for all. The adults I support can find this embarrassing that a staff member would have to read the menu for them, challenging and difficult that no visual menus are on display. We all have a right to be Included within our society. I would strongly like to highlight this as a major challenge for them. I and the people I support would like the opportunity to change this. What supports and help can you provide to us.

Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan, Louth

Upgrading energy efficiency measures

Challenge :Upgrading energy efficiency measures to an existing building for charity organisation Save Our Homeless Dundalk.

Louth

Creating Smart Communities in County Cavan

Centralised around the 13 remote working hubs in County Cavan, we would like to bring together forward-thinking ideas of how we might create smart communities to live and work in. Areas of development could overlap across digital, environmental, economical and social aspects of how our local communities can thrive.

Cavan

Community radio

A local community radio for muirhevnamor based on community events in the area

Louth

Sharing the beauty and peculiarity of Ardee Bog: Ecological Survey & Community Outreach

Sharing the beauty and peculiarity of Ardee Bog...

The purpose of this challenge is to raise awareness of Ardee Bog as an important landscape for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and recreation. Friends of Ardee Bog (FAB) wish to carry out an ecological survey of a sample area of Ardee Bog, and share the knowledge we acquire with the community through outreach. The ecological assessment would investigate which species are supported by the sample area of the bog and would evaluate its rewetting and rewilding potential. FAB would then share our knowledge of the bog and its biodiversity through setting up a ‘pop-up’ shop in Ardee in which we could exhibit artwork and information, host educational workshops and organise site visits. FAB would formulate a fundraising plan for the project as part of the challenge. This challenge would equip FAB with valuable knowledge and experience which would help us to carry out similar and potentially larger projects in the future.

Louth