Enactus Ryerson Brings Home Hardware from National Championships
Enactus Ryerson members walked away from the 2015 Enactus National Championships with three trophies, but Stefany Nieto, the chapter president, isn’t ready to rest on her laurels.
“Hopefully, we’ll do even better next year,” Nieto said. “We want to bring home the overall national cup.”
The Metro Toronto Convention Centre played host to the championships May 11 to 13 for Enactus, an international organization that “connects business and academic leaders with university students to shape the next generation of socially responsible leaders,” while its chapters aim to improve communities (locally, nationally and internationally) through entrepreneurial initiatives. Enactus teams representing 58 Canadian colleges and universities showcased their projects, competing for prizes and acclaim.
Enactus Ryerson’s environmental entrepreneurship team was crowned the winner of the Scotiabank Eco-Living Challenge for Project Dago and Project Growing North, while Project Growing North also won the 3M Canada Problem Solving Project Partnership Best Project. The overall team, comprising economic, social and environmental teams, earned a place in the competition semi-finals, where it was defeated by the University of Windsor, who lost out in the final to the University of Ottawa.
On an individual level, Nieto was the recipient of the Unilever Bright Future Leader Award, given to an Enactus participant with vision and entrepreneurial actions who serves as a role model and inspires others. Her trophy was accompanied by a bursary.
“I had no idea about the award,” said Nieto, who will continue to lead the club in the fall as a fourth-year marketing major. “I was the last person they called, and it took me by surprise. It was super-exciting.”
Through Project Dago, an initiative in rural Kenya, Enactus Ryerson members taught beekeeping to local villagers. In partnership with an earlier micro loan association that Enactus Ryerson had created, local women are selling the honey in area markets. Project Growing North is a partnership with the community of Repulse Bay, Nunavut, and external funders that has partially financed construction of a greenhouse to grow and harvest produce and herbs at a reasonable cost – something that the climate and transportation costs prevent from happening otherwise. Nieto and other members of the club will be involved in building the greenhouse this summer, and they have an Indiegogo campaign (external link) to assist them in raising the additional funds they need.
“I'm tremendously proud of our team's accomplishments,” said Professor Steven Gedeon, the group’s advisor, “and our project to feed people north of the Arctic Circle is particularly impressive. We raised over $200,000 for this project -- that's incredible for a volunteer student based group.”
Nieto said the profits from the greenhouse will be remain in the community by reinvesting in the project and benefiting the local school.
Although Nieto will have graduated when it’s time to evaluate the project’s success in 2016, she is confident the Enactus Ryerson members will continue the club’s impressive work. At least 75 per cent of the club’s 86 members are first- and second-year students, Nieto noted, and most of them plan to continue their association with the organization.
“It has been really exciting to see them grow so much,” she said. “When they join, you see what skills they want to gain. It’s an opportunity to be the people they want to be and to develop the skills they want to get.”