Andrew Sweeney

Founder of The SCOOP Foundation. Director of SCOOP Ventures. I founded an NGO - The SCOOP Foundation - after a trip to Cambodia that changed my life. The poverty and corruption I experienced led to want to create a charity that raised funds in positive and encouraging manners in order to change the lives of people hurting throughout the world through no fault of their own. We began with building 2 schools in impoverished communities in Cambodia and we then got involved with a school for children of begging families living in Varanasi, India. In 2016 my brother Calvin properly joined the fold after he travelled to Syria during the Civil War there and when he returned home we created the Syrias Vibes campaign which worked with DJs to raise funds to fund doctors, clinics and emergency services (ambulances etc). Thus began our mission to help displaced persons at home (in Ireland) and abroad (mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan but we have helped a number of Ukrainian families in 2022 also). During the pandemic we continued to grow, mainly by moving our annual art auction fully online, and as of 2022 we are a team of 7 employed staff all overseen by the strongest board we have had to date. 2022 saw the creation of the dedicated fundraising wing of SCOOP - SCOOP Ventures - with the SCOOP Kitchen Training Programme and the art driven Outside the Box campaigns being it's first projects. For more information please visit: www.scoopfoundation.org or @scoopfoundation or @scoopoutsidethebox