Three days and thirteen universities across Australia shared one same goal: winning an opportunity to represent Australia at the Enactus World Cup 2019 in San Jose, the United States. It was the 2019 Enactus National Conference and Competition hosted at the Sofitel Hotel in Sydney that I was fortunate to spend a couple of days with the amazing Enactus QUT team.
A team of seven students with support from Faculty Advisor, Jess Kelly, and two projects: Best Foot Forward and The Unknown Project. Best Foot Forward aims to provide authentic wearable indigenous art igniting pride in indigenous culture and bridging the indigenous literacy gap. The project is also where all Australians can share in stories from the Dreamtime and purchase authentic indigenous products. The profit generated through sales is used to support indigenous Australians.
The second project presented in 2019 Enactus Competition was The Unknown Project, which I have a pleasure to be part of. It was founded by two young and driven student leaders Rory McGahan and Olivia Roney and seeks to support young people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. Each five-dollar profit from every book sold makes a great impact on those people’s lives with vital educational resources. Moreover, The Unknown Project has a mission that raises public awareness of the difficulties people with refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds are facing.
To work on and learn about these social entrepreneurial projects over the last few months was a great experience for me, likewise to work with the talented and amazing Enactus QUT members as they pitched this project to Enactus Australia’s panellists was great. This two day competition was memorable because it witnessed the fifth time in a row that Enactus QUT was in the finals.