Enactus pitches in to help local community

STORY BY SAM TASKIE

Sheridan students who join Enactus are helping build a better community and gaining skills at the same time.

Enactus, a club based at the Hazel McCallion Campus, focuses on helping entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations become sustainable both economically and ecologically.

Enactus stands for “entrepreneurship,” “action” and “us.” Many schools around the world participate in Enactus competitions to showcase their achievements. The Sheridan club currently has approximately 40 members.

Bryan McClatchie, president of Sheridan’s Enactus club, started the club after transferring from Niagara College, which had an Enactus team. McClatchie wanted to help students apply what they are learning to good use. “We have a business advisory board that works with us directly that gives us guidance,” said McClatchie

Vishal Badiani, a faculty advisor for Enactus Sheridan who has been guiding them with their projects, says he enjoys coaching the students and seeing them develop skills.

“The skill sets you can learn from this are so practical, even if you don’t want to be an entrepreneur,” said Badiani. “Whether they place or not place, I think it’s trivial. It’s about the experience they get.”

Accounting student Yashpreet Parmar, events manager, likes that he can apply what he learned in class. “Many students have that co-op option. I don’t,” said Parmar in a phone interview. “I love networking. I love talking to others and it’s a great thing to be involved in, especially if you want to further your career opportunities and goals.”

Marcus Doherty, project manager, believes that Enactus is a good place to apply what you have learned at school. He is working on a project that focuses on The Lions Club, which manages the Mississauga Farmers Market. Sheridan helped by donating their older banners and marketing supplies to Enactus to create reusable bags.

The idea of using banners was used in previous projects where Enactus worked with an organization in Haiti that provided pencil cases made out of recycled material filled with school supplies. The project was called The Essential Pencil.

McClatchie said that Sheridan was “familiar with our work” from the previous projects.”

“We have these banners, we have a new idea, new opportunities. With that, we hope to take those banners and create something new within the project,” said Doherty. “The word from Sheridan is that if we do want these banners and our idea is as successful as we hope it to be almost limitless.”

Making reusable bags will help lower the carbon footprint in the area. “Not only are they being recycled, they are being used for a sustainable practice,” said McClatchie.

“Sheridan College has been, and I can’t stress this enough, absolutely incredible with the support they’ve given us,” said McClatchie.

“We’re entrepreneurs and our goal is some sort of social good,” said Doherty. Though Enactus members are mostly in business-oriented programs, they need students from different programs.

“We welcome everyone, we hope to expand the team, expand ideas and expand our projects,” said Doherty. “We’re just students that work together.”

For more information about previous and current projects visit their projects page.

Antoine Sarhan, right, doing field research at the Mississauga Farmers Market
Photo courtesy of Enactus Sheridan