Laie Team Spreads Help To Six Projects Worldwide

The 110 students who comprise Brigham Young University- Hawaii’s Enactus team can tell you, at minimum, at least six different ways they’ve helped make the world a better place. And soon, they’ll be presenting their work to the world as the 2015 Enactus U.S. National Champion team.

BYU-Hawaii Enactus team members and advisers celebrating their victory April 16 in St. Louis are (front, from left) Scott Fisher, SEE PAGE 6 Hao Hu, Sery Kouma Kone, Kevan Hendrickson, (back) Leslie G. Harper, Katherine Christensen, Taimi Kennerly and David Waite. PHOTO FROM BYU-HAWAII.

According to outgoing BYUH Enactus president and team member Sery Kone, Enactus is an international nonprofit that brings together students, business leaders and academics to use entrepreneurship to improve people’s lives around the world.

So, the Laie-based team took on six different projects, two local and four based in Africa, and devoted an average of 200 hours a week to see them come to fruition.

The first project brought them to Kahuku High School, where BYUH students helped revamp and restructure Kahuku.org, the school’s scholarshipgenerating apparel and merchandise portal, and open a second physical location in a kiosk at Polynesian Cultural Center.

Kone noted that they helped turn the struggling e-commerce store around. “Our predictions are that the store will be able to generate an annual revenue of about $120,000 this year,” he said with confidence.

Their second local task was Shine Bright, which sought to help disabled children find their passions, and then to translate those interests into products of economic value. “One of the girls we worked with this year … was able to find her passion in writing, so we helped her write her story in a book, and it is now being published,” Kone shared. Shine Bright also promotes education and training to help relatives understand what the children are going through.

The other projects saw the college students working in Africa’s Ivory Coast, starting a women’s marketplace co-op supported by community microfinancing, building a school for 300 former child slaves, reducing malaria infection rates via special fishponds and introducing beekeeping and cheaper fertilizer to struggling cacao farmers.

The team presented on each of these projects at the Enactus national competition in St. Louis, Mo., taking first place over more than 175 other colleges.

“We attribute our success to the Lord, and His support and His guidance,” said Kone. “And on top of that, BYU-Hawaii has been participating in this competition for the last 20 years. The success that we have this year was built 20 generations ago.”

Now, the team is preparing for the Enactus World Cup, to be held in October in Johannesburg, South Africa. They plan on keeping the same projects — but doubling the results.

“We should be able to take and franchise these projects so that we’re not only helping 20 or 200 people, but we can help people all across Africa,” Kone said.

He also noted that nonprofits have been formed to continue these programs long after the Enactus World Cup wraps up. “These are not projects that we did for the sake of competition only. We are going to continue working on them even after Enactus has en