Johannesburg – South Africa.
Congratulations are in order for the BYU-Hawaii Enactus team who placed 2nd out of 36 countries in the Enactus World Cup, on Friday, October 16. Read the press release from Enactus USA here.
Enactus, which stands for entrepreneurial, action and us, is “a community of student, academic, and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better more sustainable world” (enactus.org). BYU–Hawaii has had an active Enactus team for a number of years, and has consistently placed among the top teams in the country during the last few years.
Bo Porter, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Willes Center of BYU-Hawaii said, “I have participated in all three BYU entrepreneurship programs, BYU, BYU-Idaho and now BYU-Hawaii. They are all amazing, but what really sets BYU-Hawaii apart as a really special school is its emphasis on social entrepreneurship and at the heart of that is Enactus.”
The BYU-Hawaii Enactus team were invited as part of a “select group of 3,500 student, business and academic leaders from around the world to meet at the Enactus World Cup to showcase entrepreneurial action and shared innovation” (enactus.org), following their U.S. National Championship success back in April of this year. It was at the Championships where the team had to win, in competition against 180 other Enactus teams around the country, in order to qualify to make it to Johannesburg to compete at the World Cup.
On the team’s return from South Africa, Kevan Hendrickson, the current president of the BYU-Hawaii Enactus team, reflected on the team’s successful journey. “The thing is our school only has around 2,700 students, and all these other schools had 30,000+ students, and so to realize our school has been in the top five in the United States [for Enactus] for the last five years -we’re competing against amazing schools with huge populations. But the reason our school does so well is because we have students that are so passionate – they really care about what they’re doing and who they’re serving.”
With this in mind, Hendrickson discussed the true importance of the competition, during his reflection on the post-competition interviews. “The most common question we’re asked is, ‘You took second place, how does that make you feel?’ The key to understanding how we feel is realizing why we went and why we’re participating every year.” Hendrickson explained, “It’s because we’re not just there for the competition, but we’re there to represent and share our story, and to represent first and foremost the people we served in our projects, and then the University and the Church. The last people would be ourselves.”
“The four projects that we presented on at the competition were all underneath the non-government organization WELL Africa.” These four projects all worked toward achieving one goal: “fight child slavery and the poverty that causes it. [The projects] represent an integrated or comprehensive solution in which we are helping the community as whole, not just one segment of the populations,” as further explained by Sery Kouma Kone, the founder of WELL Africa.
WELL Africa, which stands for World Education for a Legacy of Liberty in Africa, is a non-government organization founded by BYU-Hawaii graduate Kone, whose vision of WELL Africa developed through his involvement with SIFE (now Enactus). Started in 2012, the NGO was brought about with “the idea of providing a long-term and sustainable solution to the issue of child slavery and poverty in the Ivory Coast Cacao supply chain, by working side by side with all the key stakeholders in the industry,” said Kone.
“I understood from the beginning that in order to effectively address the challenges these children face, I had to look at the big picture,” explained Kone, himself once a child laborer of Cacao farms in the Ivory Coast. “We simply could not build a school and call it good. We would have had a school built, but were the farmers going to let the children attend and accept losing part of their labor force? That is the question we had to answer right from the beginning. The solution was to come up with a plan in which everybody in the community wins.”
“We started building the school for the children, but also launched a training platform for farmers giving tools they could use to be successful, and not rely on those little hands to produce their beans.”
Thus the first project of the four presented, Hendrickson explained “was a school that Well Africa built [in the Ivory Coast] where 300 students are now attending.”
Another project, termed “Cacaonomics,” was then aimed at helping farmers in their work. This is where farmers can get real-time information on how to improve farming techniques. The team worked to “cut the cost of their fertilizers in half”, explained Hendrickson, and also “fixed a road that would give access to a city for around 3000 farmers – now they can take cacao to the city and sell it at market value.”
The third project is the “Women Economic Project” (WEP), a micro-finance institution for women in the Ivory Coast. Currently, around 300 women are now working on businesses to provide for their families. “This project has been designed to help women gain the adequate business training, consequently start their own small businesses, and support the children’s education,” said Kone.
“The last project was named Roll Back Malaria. We developed an innovative way of fighting Malaria using fish ponds, which is not a proven way of reducing the mosquito’s infection in humans, but it also created an economic benefit of about $5,000 for every village in which it has been implemented.”
“These projects were first implemented in one village (Touih) and were replicated in 5 other villages directly impacting 44,000 people. Now, 300 children are getting their education, more than 500 women were trained and 120 of them started their own businesses, and 4,500 farmers are benefiting from our Cacaonomics Platform, “ said Kone.
The motivation for the BYU-Hawaii students to compete in the world-wide competition was evident and to Hendrickson and others. “The reason it’s so important is we help students get jobs, and it brings attention to these kinds of projects. When we won the national competition, [the team] went to the Ivory Coast to meet and work with the people. They were interviewed, and it shined a light on the conditions of the lives of the people there. The project that we’re doing – everything that we’re doing – was aimed at stopping child slavery, or child labor in that area. So the more attention we can get, the more likely it is that we can build those relationships that allow us to help the people in the area.”
WELL Africa’s Kone, explained that for him, “the competition was the realization of the prophecy made five decades ago by David O. McKay. There we were at a World Competition to show what BYU-Hawaii students, faculty members, and administrators can do to make the world a better place. We demonstrated that although we had all the reasons to blame an entire industry, we choose to be these men and women whose influence will be felt towards the establishment of peace internationally. The WELL Africa philosophy is “No one is guilty, but everyone is responsible.”
The missionary opportunities that came through the project were significant as well. “When we work on these projects, we open up the way for missionaries to be able to talk to people. We actually got interviewed by Forbes Africa, and afterwards the lady who was the intermural between Enactus and Forbes Africa came up to us, and we spent an hour just answering questions about the Church.” The importance of these kinds of missionary opportunities is made clear “when you think of the worth of one soul…even if we are able to touch one soul,” Hendrickson recalled.
Despite the competition between the teams each representing their countries, Hendrickson concluded that his favorite part was found in the sharing of ideas to improve lives. He reflected, “The UK team was amazing [Enactus World Cup Winners 2015]. We spent six hours and met with a bunch of them and we just sat and talked about the projects and how we can do better. That was after the competition – that’s my favorite part.”
“To the anonymous heroes that worked behind the scene, I hope to express my gratitude,” said Kone. “Our current success cannot solely be attributed to the current students on our team. It’s the result of the work done by many generations of students, faculty, donors, and administrators who have this in common: the commitment to serve others and the strong belief in the human potential to rise above challenges and achieve miracles. They all got the vision we had from the beginning and supported us all the way through.”
Congratulations to the BYU-Hawaii team, and to the UK team.
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To view BYU-Hawaii’s final presentation in the Enactus World Cup 2015, click here:
To learn more about any of the projects of WELL Africa, visit their website, or their facebook page.
Information on the BYU-Hawaii Enactus team’s upcoming projects can be found here:
Kapalu Connection - https://www.thekapaluconnection.com/who-we-are/
Morph Studios - https://www.morphgames.com/
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About Enactus
Enactus United States is part of an international non-profit organization that brings together student, academic and business leaders who are committed to improving the world through entrepreneurial action. Guided by business experts and academic advisors at 1,700 universities in 36 countries, the 70,500 student leaders of Enactus create and implement entrepreneurial projects each year impacting more than 1,950,000 people. The experience not only transforms lives, it helps students develop the kind of talent and perspective essential to leadership in an ever-more complicated and challenging world. For more information, contact Daniel Ortega, Marketing Manager, Enactus United States at 417-575-3567 or visit www.enactus.org.
