St. Clair’s Enactus team members received second place awards at the recent Enactus National Exposition, a virtual event hosting 61 teams from Canadian colleges and universities. Two projects, InterACT and Endure, placed second in the Enactus Canada National CWB Financial Education Challenge.
Project InterACT is an online platform that provides students with the skills and resources to achieve financial stability. This initiative prepares students with job interview experience, job opportunities, and works to teach them basic financial skills through a mobile app and website that was developed by a team in the Mobile Application Development program.
Endure is a mentorship program tailored to individuals with developmental disabilities to encourage independence and apply focused skills towards their fulfilled livelihoods. Students in the Community Integration through Cooperative Education (CICE) program have benefited from Endure in many ways.
The CICE program is designed to provide individuals with developmental disabilities and other significant learning challenges with the opportunity to experience college life, pursue a post-secondary education and develop skills that will help them prepare for employment. The students commented that for the first time, they felt like they "belonged in college" and that they were working with their peers in post-secondary.
Endure has been a huge win on making great strides to have students with developmental disabilities integrated with non-disabled post-secondary students. "We still have a long way to go, but this project, this collaboration of so many involved is an amazing starting point to educate staff and students to continue to work on removing the barriers that students with developmental disabilities face when it comes to accessing post-secondary education," said Stephanie DeFranceschi, the program's coordinator.
The Enactus team thanked their partners who contributed to their success through investment of people, time, and funding, including the Student Representative Council, Alumni Association, Community Integration through Cooperative Education program, Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre, WECDSB, Community Living and Libro Credit Union. The team would also like to personally thank Tony Mao, Peter Nikita, Darren Takaki, Cai Filiault, and Nick Sylvestre for their involvement in the development of the InterACT mobile application.
The team also acknowledged faculty advisors Michael Spadotto, Teodora Milovanovic, and Jim Marsh for their continued direction and support.
"I am so unbelievably proud of my Enactus St Clair team. This year wouldn't have been a success without the help of each one of our team members and community partners. Thank you to everyone that has contributed to our projects and team. We wouldn't be where we are without you," Enactus president Avery King said.