Acting for sustainable change: Sophia Palmstedt '12 reflects on how UWCSEA prepared her to take action through Enactus

Sophia Palmstedt, Class of 2012, Dover Campus

Enactus is the best thing I have done since graduating from UWCSEA. It allows me to practice everything I learn in my course and apply it to something I feel passionately about - creating social empowerment projects. I could go on forever about this society and the skills I’ve learnt (leadership, project planning, business planning, communication, networking etc) but its honestly all because of how UWCSEA shaped me to want more than just an academic education at university that makes me so enthusiastic.

Having attended UWCSEA from the age of 12 to 18, I should be starting this article with assertiveness, energy and captivating vocabulary. But you simply can’t summarize the impact of UWCSEA on an individual in one sentence. This is my third and final year as a Management (with Human Resources) student at Royal Holloway University of London, and as my university course comes to a close, I’ve found myself thinking about my academic career so far, the experiences I’ve had and who I’ve become as a result of them.

I think most alumni would agree that it is only when you leave UWCSEA that you realize how good your life actually was. Only now do I realize that the having to take part in a global concerns and committing your time to social service once a week as a curriculum requirement from a very early age may have felt forced at the time, but that this view was that of a naïve teenager. And that at some point we just stopped questioning why we have to do it and found that we wanted to do it, just because we felt like it. This is why UWCSEA students aren’t like the rest. It is also the reason that drove me to join the Enactus community at Royal Holloway on only my third day at university.

In simple terms, Enactus is like a Global Concern but taken to the next level. It is a global, non-profit organization operating in 37 countries run by 1,600 students all over the world. A community of university students, leaders and business advisors with one common goal: to empower communities through entrepreneurship projects. During my second year of university I became president of the Enactus Royal Holloway team. With the help of local partners such as NGOs and local community centers we work with a group of individuals, identify their specific needs and the needs of their community and tailor a project aimed to tackle these needs. Through the transfer of business and economic concepts we are then able to teach and therefore empower individuals to overcome their problems and improve their quality of life and standard of living.

Because of Enactus, I was able to travel and set up a project in Seenigama, Sri Lanka in January 2014, empowering 12 women to gain an income and raise their confidence by setting up a jackfruit chutney enterprise. I am able to practice everything I learn in my course and apply it to creating social empowerment projects.

At the same time we ran a project called ENTYRE; a local project in the UK empowering four people with mental health conditions through a tyre recycling enterprise, turning them into ottoman chairs and selling them to local furniture shops. The year before I witnessed the growth of a project in India called SEW: Sustainable Empowerment for Women, empowering 40 women. Through an incense stick business (a product of high religious demand) developed over two years we managed to raise the women 8% above the poverty line by raising their income by 70%. Enactus Southampton used old plastic bottles to create a toilet, providing the villagers in Kissie, Kenya with a solution to meeting their basic needs and providing the local farmers with the human waste as fertilizer to increase their crop yield. Enactus Sheffield saved families from the harsh winter in Bolivia by providing them with locally produced thermal blankets made from old crisp packets found in the village.

Aside from making it to the semi-final round of every Enactus UK National competition (where we present our projects in front of a panel of judges from Enactus sponsor companies), being part of the Enactus world is an incredible experience. I have the chance to help people, teaching women about break-even point or the basic principles of marketing (theories I learn in my university lectures). I also lead a team of 30, managing weekly committee meetings, overseeing four social projects, running guest speaker events, coordinating the annual ‘fresher’s week’, liaising with our business advisory board and communications with university officials. This has given me invaluable skills in leadership, public speaking, project management, team work, risk assessments, networking, project planning and, maybe the most important of all, lessons from experiencing failure and learning from it.

What UWCSEA and Enactus have in common is that making a sustainable impact in this world isn’t done over night; it takes time and commitment. If anything this has made me look at the world differently. The saying “Give a man a fish and he’ll feed his family for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed his family for a lifetime” isn’t just an ephemeral thought but my state of mind in everything I do.

I was asked what my plans are after I graduate and even though I’m uncertain about my exact next steps at the moment, I am certain of my values, beliefs and personal strengths because of the lessons learnt at both UWCSEA and Enactus and feel strongly that any future path will be guided by these.