Saturday, 1 June 2019

UL Enactus (www.enactus.org) had another very successful year where they were runners up in the Enactus Ireland National Competition in May 2019 receiving positive endorsement of the empowerment of their three social enterprise projects.

They increased membership to 160 students who dedicated 6000 hours to volunteering and working with social enterprises and established 12 new social enterprise and corporate partnerships. They established a strong media presence achieving 362,000+ Social Media impressions, being interviewed on RTÉ 2fm, featured articles in the Irish Examiner, Farmers Journal, Agriland, Limerick Leader and the Limerick Post.
 
Picture shows R-L: Rory Carty, Head of Youth Banking for Bank of Ireland, Skhulekile Ruth Ndlovu, Catriona O’Halloran, Aoibhín Jordan, James Crotty, Elaine Gleeson, Jack O’Connor, Leanne Delaney and Terence O’Rourke, Chairman of Enactus Ireland at the Enactus National Competition.

 
UL Enactus generated impact through three social enterprises as follows:
 
Sparked 
SparkED – ‘Sparking the Light for a Brighter Future’ is a youth leadership development programme that empowers secondary school pupils with leadership, communication and personal development skills through a series of workshops and volunteering activities. The Transition Year students were empowered to put the skills they have learned into volunteering with organisation such as Limericks Gateway to Education, Claire’s Wish and Limerick Animal Welfare.  A number of the Transition year students also gained work experience opportunities in UBER and UL Law Department.
ReStart
ReStart project aims to integrate refugees and asylum seekers into the Irish community through various initiatives such as cooking and selling food products and gardening.  Asylum seekers in conjunction with Enactus students developed a range of traditional dishes from countries spanning Zimbabwe to India and sold those at a weekly food stall at the UL Market and they secured one commercial contract. The Enactus members delivered a number of workshops on developing business skills in customer care, pricing, budgeting and marketing which were applied by individuals selling food weekly in the UL Market.
Moya Nua
Moya Nua has designed hand held seed planters for smallholder farmers in Malawi reducing labour intensity for farmers, increasing productivity and reducing costs.  Complementing the range of products, the team has created an e-learning platform to teach Malawian students practical business skills in social media, business management and bookkeeping.
 
 In addition to success in the Enactus Ireland Final,  Moya Nua were crowned the inaugural winners of the World Trade Centre’s Association 'Peace Through Trade Competition 2019. Two members of Moyo Nua project, Jack O'Connor and Catherine Hallinan, travelled to the World Trade Centre’s 50th Annual General Assembly in Querétarom Mexico where they presented their project to an international delegate of 500 business professionals from 91 countries. (https://www.wtca.org/world-trade-center-queretaro).
The team also has an article printed in FORBES magazine https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysplitter/2019/05/09/meet-the-irish-college-students-working-on-a-seed-planter-for-farmers-in-malawi/#17ab61a62955
 
Further details on Enactus can be obtained from Brian Shee (Brian.Shee@ul.ie) or  Briga Hynes (Briga.Hynes@ul.ie)