Enactus: enterprising students with a big heart
Students who not only want to contribute to society but also have an enterprising spirit can find their niche at Enactus Maastricht. This too is a global student organisation, operating in 36 countries.
Rens Roodzant, third-year International Business student, currently chairs the Maastricht branch. ‘Enactus helps teams of students to develop their own project, which can ultimately become an independent company.’ A successful example is Arbor, which produces notebooks made from recycled paper. A lot of waste paper is partly blank, so instead of throwing it away, Arbor screens it for confidential information, cuts it to size, and binds it into notebooks with a nice cover made of paper from the Jan van Eyck Academy. ‘Arbor is still growing, and we sometimes receive more orders than we can handle, for example from Heineken or UM.’
Sustainability and society first, profit second
Another Enactus project is Cook & Connect, a catering company which draws on the culinary talents of migrants. It’s a highly successful concept for which Enactus functions as an ‘incubator’. Enactus projects always centre on social aims and sustainability, and profit takes second place. ‘Corporate social responsibility is a trending topic, but mainly in a theoretical context,’ says Rens. ‘At Enactus, students can apply it in real life. Finance is all about investment, and rarely about sustainable projects. But what you invest in is also important. And I think you should stand up for what you believe in.’
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Match
In 2016, the City of Maastricht and UM jointly founded Match. Match acts as an initiator and intermediary to connect the supply of socially engaged student volunteers with demand in the community.
Disclaimer
This is the first episode in a short series about Maastricht students’ reasons for choosing different kinds of volunteering. Only four other student organisations will be mentioned, but there are obviously many more student organisations active in Maastricht. For more examples, see the UM website.
Cook & Connect
It's all about people
Vice-chair and Sustainable Finance masters student Chantal Genovese also sees Enactus as a perfect fit. ‘I was a volunteer for organisations like Amnesty International, and I thought, why don’t I take my values into the business world? I like to be involved in the local community, where I can meet people who have the same outlook as I do. Ultimately it’s all about people. About creating a community together that can grow sustainably and ethically.’ Depending on the project, the teams spend two or three hours a week on their work at Enactus. There are also weekly meetings to update each other on developments, but these aren’t compulsory. Above all, the key word at Enactus is motivation. ‘We really form a team,’ says Rens. ‘Most members are students from the School of Business and Economics. With us they can experience how business models really work. But non-SBE students are also very welcome to make a project proposal.’
You can spend most of your time as a student in the library with a book or in the bar with a beer, of course – both are important in your student days. But it’s great to see that there are students in Maastricht who choose to devote some of their free time to society. I firmly believe that this benefits not only society, but also the students themselves. By working together, we can all help to improve society. I’d like to compliment all the students who realise this at such a young age.
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