After winning the U.S. national competition in April, the BYU–Hawaii Enactus team will be traveling to South Africa from Oct. 12-20 to compete for the international title. Five students have been chosen to be a part of this experience and adventure to South Africa.
Enactus stands for entrepreneurship, action and us. This organization is based upon the idea to inspire people through entrepreneurial action to change lives. BYUH has been a part of Enactus for a number of years, but within the last five years it has placed among the top five in the nation.
More then 500 schools in the USA participate in the Enactus program, and of those schools 183 go to national competitions, says Enactus information. Kevan Hendrickson, the president of the BYUH Enactus program and senior majoring in IDS Digital Marketing from Arizona, said he is thrilled to be joining the other members of his team in South Africa to compete. “We get to compete in the world competition against 35 teams in South Africa,” he said.
The goal for Enactus is to empower the students to make a change and inspire them to come up with the ideas for their projects. “The last couple years we have been working on a project called ‘Well Africa,’ which was started by Sery Kone. He’s been working on this project for three years to fight against child slavery on the Ivory Coast,” said Hendrickson. BYUH alumnus Kone is from the Ivory Coast and has connections with people there who work with him and his team in order to train members of Enactus.
“The really cool thing was that we were able to send students over to Africa this summer to meet the people because we are representing the school and the Church,” said Hendrickson. “We want to show people that we care and want to make a change, but not change that just happens once, but is sustainable and affects thousands of lives.” The BYUH Enactus project in the last year has reported affected 38,000 people.
Sisilia Po‘oi, a freshman majoring in business and finance from Laie, said, “Enactus is a good thing. I like how it gives people the chance to serve, and for others to benefit from that service. I’m really interested in seeing how the competition goes in South Africa.”
During the competition, Hendrickson and his team want to share their experience with the student body, so they are using a new app called Periscope. The app allows you to see a live stream video of people from around the world who have the app. It’s like one-way video chatting with the world.
Hendrickson said he is looking forward to involving the student body in Laie. “Our plan is to use it at the competition, and film the events and students from 35 different countries.”
One of Enactus’ main goals is to show students they can still make a difference and can impact other people, even though they may not be financially stable themselves. The goal for the week in October is to build relationships. “We started an Enactus collaboration in which we share our ideas with 100-plus people around the world as a part of our international group.”
Hendrickson is excited to see where the program is headed and can’t wait for more students to join. “The only requirement to join is to show up and be willing to just try something new.”
Jinjin Han, a sophomore from China majoring in finance, had never heard of Enactus until coming to BYUH this year. “I think that the program is awesome and the goals of it are really inspiring. I like how it works locally and internationally.”
Look for Enactus’ upcoming project that will soon transform student transportation on campus. The Enactus program has more than 40 bikes that they are going to fix up and paint green. These bikes will be put all around campus and students can use the bikes to get around. It will be a continuous cycle of recycling bikes, so students can use a bike and leave it at the next bike rack for other students to use.