Cathedral College Wangaratta

CATHEDRAL COLLEGE WANGARATTA

BRINGING SOCIAL ENTERPRISE TO THE WORLD

Two Year Ten Cathedral College Wangaratta students, Ella Kidd and Alexandra Tiso recently represented the College at the Social Enterprise World Youth Forum held in Brisbane. Ella and Alex codesigned a workshop that was presented to people from all over the world who were there to discuss, share and reflect on how their own experiences could help develop a culture of action and change for things they are passionate about in the future.

Cathedral College Director of Studies Julie Findlay has been involved in the successful program for a number of years. “The College has had a long-standing relationship with The Australia Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE) since it began supporting schools to run Social Enterprise activities,” Mrs Findlay said. “Our Year Nine students select an elective in which they can apply their skills to make products in a business. By developing a business, they must work together, plan, organise and negotiate, problem solve and apply financial literacy. All proceeds go to a cause of their choice. Thus far they have raised nearly $50,000 for causes they wish to support.” Ella was thrilled to represent the College at the forum which this year focussed on ‘Co-Creating the Future’. “Everyone attending had the opportunity to present solutions to bring change by turning their passion into action. Throughout the two days, there were sessions where young and old entrepreneurs were given the chance to share their social enterprise stories and passions,” Ella said. “I was given the chance to connect with like-minded people who held the same values as me; wanting to create positive change in the future.” A highlight for Ella was sharing a fireside chat with Dylan Alcott which she said: “...left me even more inspired to create helpful change in our world. We all can sit back and notice what the problems are but it’s a whole different thing to act on them.” Alex said sharing her personal experience with the program with a large audience was wonderful.

“I was able to share that being part of a social enterprise showed me that you can’t always do things by yourself, and I learnt that ‘if you want to go fast go by yourself but if you want to go far go with others’ and I think that’s something that everyone needs to know.”

“The aim of our workshop was for the audience to listen to our experience and grasp how we created our own business. We wanted our workshop to be fun, interactive, and inspiring,” Alex said.