La Sierra Enactus among top national teams, strengthens education in Nepal

At nationals, Brigham Young University-Hawaii took the championship and will represent the U.S. at the World Cup event in the Netherlands this fall, while Southern Adventist University placed third in the final round.

During Enactus competition, teams from contending schools deliver adjudicated multi-media presentations accompanied by printed annual reports detailing financials and sustainable, ongoing local or international projects as well as the numbers of individuals impacted. Competition judges are business executives who ask questions based on the presentations and annual reports.

The team’s activities are funded through donor support which this year includes Christian radio station 89.7 KSGN, philanthropists Tom and Vi Zapara, Loma Linda University, ADRA International, the City of Riverside, Growing Hope Urban Farm, Hoste Hainse and Rural Development and Empowerment Center (RUDEC), Nepal.

Expedition Nepal

Enactus projects typically involve large amounts of time in planning and implementation and must be shoehorned in around team members’ class schedules. The Nepal expansion of eLibrary required an extensive preparation period during which needs assessments were conducted of schools in Nepal before Ramos began duplicating the flash drives from master drives using USB duplicators. To aid in implementation, the group established links with Nepali partner organizations through dozens of emails.Travel to Nepal involved a 15-hour journey with a layover in Qatar during which the La Sierra students finished their final class assignments and submitted them online from the airport. The team landed in Nepal’s capitol, Kathmandu with the flash drives safely tucked into their luggage. Their journey through security checkpoints was aided by formal letters from officials confirming the legitimacy of their travel.

“There's always that chance that maybe these educational resources leads one of them to be an engineer." -- Abigail Ramos, senior management and marketing major, La Sierra Enactus member

After their arrival in Kathmandu, where they stayed with the family of teammate Sorasak Joshi, the three-person team immediately set to work the next day packaging the computers and drives, and attaching labels and instructions. They delivered five computers and 10 drives each to nine of the targeted schools during their week in the South Asia nation. In Nepal, the Enactus team members.“Going to the schools was the best part of this trip,” Ramos said. “And so those are the schools that either were really affected by poverty, are really affected by the [2015] earthquake. … the kids would always be so excited.”

The delivery process to schools sometimes involved long car drives from the team’s base in Kathmandu and one overnight trip. The students gave presentations and took photos with local leaders, and showed teachers and students how to use the drives. They engaged with excited Nepali youth by displaying flash drive video content – NASA and solar system videos proved particularly popular, Ramos said. Three partner Nepali organizations including RUDEC Nepal helped deliver the remaining flash drives and computers around the country.

Driving Change

Implementing projects and interacting with vulnerable populations are often eye-opening experiences for Enactus students who are able to observe the direct and potential impact in the lives of those most in need.

“There's always that chance that maybe these educational resources leads one of them to be an engineer,” Ramos said. “It's no longer just a hypothetical.

“And for a lot of those students that I met last year [for CultivatED] and that we met this year, they just want someone to believe in them, they want someone to tell them that it's possible to have a better future.”

La Sierra’s team, which has set a precedent for national and international Enactus championship wins, is based in the Zapara School of Business and involves students from across academic disciplines.  This year’s Enactus team president, Aaron DesJardins says the team prepped well in advance for competition by holding interviews and auditions for those wanting to be among the group chosen for competition presentations, followed by focused script-writing sessions and many hours of script recitation, memorization, and delivery rehearsal in coordination with a video montage of team projects. Students from La Sierra’s Film & Television Production department assisted with script writing and video production.

“I think it went well,” DesJardins said of the team’s performance at nationals. “I was really proud to see all of our presentation team members up there and giving their all, I know they tried their very best and I'm very proud of how far they've all come.”

He noted in particular the achievements of two new presentation members, Ethan Miranda and Julia Ko, freshmen students who had their first experience handling the pressure of delivering a memorized and sequenced report and answering judges’ questions. “It was really inspiring to see their growth and how they kind of took that role on and really fully embraced it,” DesJardins said.

The Enactus team is now focused on expanding the eLibrary project with an outreach trip planned this summer to the Micronesia archipelago of Palau where team members will deliver educational curriculum flash drives to 24 schools impacting 4,000 students. The team will also build out its CultivatED program to involve additional schools and include a Seventh-day Adventist Academy in online curriculum related to hydroponics agriculture. A new initiative is also in exploratory stages that would seek to utilize technology toward addressing homelessness issues in Riverside through a partnership with a local nonprofit.

Full Circle

While Enactus focuses on changing lives and helping communities improve and progress, college students who join and become closely involved in Enactus teams and projects are similarly changed.Ramos, a senior marketing and management major has been an Enactus team member since her freshman year and was a member of the presentation team last year during competitions in New York. She describes her experiences in Enactus as “invaluable” to her personal growth.

“I think this should be everyone's mission to make a difference and provide opportunities." -- Aaron DesJardins, marketing and graphic design major, La Sierra Enactus president

“I'm a very sociable person,” she said. “I thrive in social situations and I love talking to people and getting to know them. But I never knew how to direct that to networking or to getting to know people in a businesslike way. [Enactus] gave me the chance to learn how to speak professionally and yet passionately. They taught me how to use the business knowledge that I know and mesh that with the things that I care about to be able to create things that made lasting change,” she said.

Said DesJardins, “It's made me more confident in myself and my abilities. It's made me realize what it's like to balance things in a professional setting and give me insight into those things. So when I go into the workforce, I feel a lot more prepared and ready to work with professionals. I feel like I am a lot more outgoing than I was prior to joining Enactus [in 2020] and I feel like I'm a lot more comfortable in my own skin, especially after being part of presentation team [in 2022].

He also noted the numerous memories, friendships and connections made through Enactus activities, and in particular the incorporation of humanitarian values through involvement in team projects.

“You can't just be a passive bystander in life,” DesJardins said. “I think this should be everyone's mission to make a difference and provide opportunities for your community in any way you can. I think that's kind of something that Enactus has instilled in me, just the importance of that social entrepreneurship.”