Undergraduate students are celebrating recent achievements in the Enactus Central Canada Regional Exposition.

A team of students representing Schulich and York University took home a third place win this month, after presenting on a variety of initiatives addressing corporate social responsibility.

Schulich BBA candidate Shadab Rohaila is President of the York Enactus chapter, which conducts projects each year in four categories: Youth Empowerment, Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship, and Environmental Sustainability.

“Our goal every year is to impact and improve the lives of as many people as possible,” he said.

The Enactus regional competition brings together chapters from all of central Canada. This year 25 schools competed, giving Schuich and York competitors the chance to work alongside students from Guelph, Laurier, Concordia, Windsor and more.

“These universities are broken down for each of the four Enactus categories mentioned above, and then put into leagues,” said Shadab. “Kind of like the world cup.”

The team placed Second Runner-Up in the Youth Empowerment category sponsored by Scotiabank for its project, “LME (License, Mentor, Empower)” designed to empower homeless youth. Enactus York enrolled marginalized youth community members into the LME program which teaches essential employment skills. The team also established a partnership with Paladin Security to secure interviews and some job placements for youth in the program.

“That is our goal: not to function as a charity, but to create means for people to empower themselves,” said Shadab.

After all of their hard work, participating in the regional competition meant a lot to the team – and served to inspire them further.

“The experience was phenomenal!” said Shadab. “We not only got to present our results to a panel of judges, but we also got to see other teams showcase their projects. To be in a room with such student leaders truly made everything worth it.”