College Entrepreneurs Awarded at Young Enterprise

Every year, the College runs the Young Enterprise Scheme as an extra-curricular activity for those who have an entrepreneurial drive. This year, one group of Year 12 students and two groups of Year 13 students entered the regional competition.

Working collaboratively throughout the year, the groups set up and ran their businesses under the guidance of experienced entrepreneurs and business experts, gaining a taste of what owning a business would be like. Saint Kentigern has had success with this programme throughout the years and for the first time, this year, it has embedded into our NCEA Level 3 Business Studies Programme.

Being assessed on innovation, sustainability and how well the groups consult with mentors, the College groups did particularly in the competition gaining multiple awards. The Year 13 group, Retro Roots was awarded as regional finalists and received Excellence for Online Presence, fellow Year 13 group, Drop-Up received Excellence in Validation and the Year 12 group, SwiC was named as a regional finalist. Year 13 student and member of Retro Roots, Michael Sheed was also recognised as Young Person of the Year.

Here is what each group did:

Retro Roots: Bobby Chungsuvanich, Tom Harford and Michael Sheed
Michael already had some experience selling ‘vintage’ clothing online via Instagram. After discovering how wasteful ‘fast fashion’ was and how many items of clothing end up in landfills around the world, he shared this idea with his group. Michael and his team focussed on collecting and selling vintage clothing that was appealing to younger consumers. They worked hard at changing peoples’ ‘negative’ ideas around wearing second-hand clothing and educated their customers about positive environmental effects of recycling their unwanted goods. The team did very well, with sales reaching the thousands. In the end, the group decided to donate some of their profits to Youthline, as they believe the work that they do around mental health and supporting teenagers is great.

Drop-Up: Joseph Chan, Owen Chen, Lisa Schulze-Bergkamen and Ivan Zhang
Drop-Up’s modelled the idea of an op shop, where they collected unwanted clothing and on-sold them to the public. Their market was younger customers ‘who are not always well served by current second-hand shops or do not have the habit of donating their unwanted clothes to be resold for a good cause’. The group plans to give their profits to the Salvation Army and Red Cross.

SwiC: Christine Chen, Weiling Li and Sarina Wang
This group made scrunchies from old, donated clothing. The scrunchies looked great and were designed to attract a younger market at a low and affordable price. 

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