A team of students from Enactus Mount Allison was named Scotiabank Youth Empowerment Challenge (SYEC) Regional Champions at the Enactus Regional Exposition in Halifax on the weekend. The regional champions now move to the national level of competition in Toronto in May. In addition, honours physics student Hannah Stegen, the organization’s co-president, received the 2016 HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow award for Atlantic Canada from Enactus and HSBC Bank.

“My experience with Enactus Mount Allison has been life changing. Every day I am given the chance to improve the livelihoods of those in our community while working with an amazing group of driven and dedicated Mount Allison students,” says Stegen. “I am honoured to be named the HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow for Atlantic Canada. Together, as a team, I believe we will accomplish great things and we look forward to competing on the national stage in May.”

Stegen was also recognized for launching a Women in Science Panel at the annual Atlantic University Physics and Astronomy Conference. The panel was so successful it is now an annual event at the conference.

In all, four teams from Mount Allison took part in the regionals and all came away with awards. In addition to the regional champions, Learn to Grow, Solution Duck received a second place award in the TD Entrepreneurship Challenge, Textbook Osmosis received third place in the Capital One Financial Education Challenge, and Faces of Environmentalism placed third in the Scotiabank EcoLiving Green Challenge.

Solution Duck was created as a student-run consulting business to work with small, struggling businesses. Textbook Osmosis collects out-dated textbooks, distributes them, and creates financial literacy programs for places like penitentiaries and refugee centres. Faces of Environmentalism raises awareness for local environmental groups.

The SYEC had students develop and run projects that address the needs and opportunities facing youth. Learn to Grow, with physics students Michael Reno and Kalli Hood, psychology student Kristyn Visser, and Commerce student Daniel Chisholm, worked with geography and environment professor Dr. Michael Fox and his students on a project to expand Salem Elementary School’s Outdoor Education Program. They created a Pumpkin Patch Program and a Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum for elementary schools.

In addition, four Mount Allison students were supported in their efforts to run the Mount Allison farm at a profit. The idea behind the initiative was to empower students to grow their own produce, but also to teach them how to market and sell their products.

"If regionals have taught me anything, it is that when creative and dedicated people get together, anything is possible," says physics student and Enactus co-president, Logan Toth.

Dr. Nauman Farooqi of the Ron Joyce Centre for Business Studies and academic advisor to Enactus Mount Allison says, “It is great to see students from across the University working together in these entrepreneurial activities because this is something for which we strive.”

Enactus Canada develops and is shaping a generation of entrepreneurial leaders. Enactus students led 288 community empowerment projects and business ventures this past year in communities coast to coast. For more information, visit enactus.ca.

COVER PHOTO (L-R): Bill Waterman, faculty advisor, Hannah Stegen, and Logan Toth, the two co-presidents of Enactus Mount A.

MAIN PHOTO: Enactus Mount Allison team members at the Enactus Regional Exposition in Halifax.