I am an individual passionate to leverage the power of for-profit business to create a positive social change. My Ivey education has developed my capacity to bring structure to ambiguous cases, a key skill in the social impact field. I have driven innovation and growth through my work with the Western Retail Business Club, a student run organization that manages retail ventures to generate profit for social change. Additionally, as a bilingual tour guide in Quebec I enhanced my French and English communication skills. Looking forward, I aspire to learn more about cross-cultural communication and social enterprise.
Additional Information
Personal Definition of Sustainability
Sustainability is the ability of different parties to coexist and collaborate to create and maintain a system with mutually positive outputs. Sustainability can be perceived as a cycle. It is the convergence of corporate and social agents in order to support the operations of a community. These three parties are armed with powerful tools, such as capital, experience, intellectual resources, and passion. Therefore, corporations can make positive contributions to this cycle based on their experience and expertise and social actors can bridge the gaps between corporations and communities. With this collaboration, sustainability can be achieved and maintained.
Sustainability-in-Action
Sustainability is apparent in many aspects of my life. I'll outline the three most relevant, which include a community service learning trip, an awareness initiative, and a career opportunity. In first year, I participated in Alternative Spring Break, a program at Western that allows students to spend reading week volunteering abroad in my case for community development. My team and I travelled to Urubamba, Peru where we laid the cement foundation for the second story of an elementary school. Our work will lead to an increased capacity for education, which will enable youth in the community to gain knowledge on how to organically develop and sustain their own community. Currently, I am the section 4 representative for the Ivey Sustainability Club and we have been working together to raise awareness in the Ivey community with guest speakers. For the summer of 2012, if hired, I will work with Air Miles for Social Change to increase the sustainability of our planet by developing loyalty programs to reward customers for energy conservation, using public transit and safely disposing electronic waste. Finally, if accepted as a Sustainability Certificate candidate, I hope to engage in many more sustainability projects.
Sustainability is the ability of different parties to coexist and collaborate to create and maintain a system with mutually positive outputs. Sustainability can be perceived as a cycle. It is the convergence of corporate and social agents in order to support the operations of a community. These three parties are armed with powerful tools, such as capital, experience, intellectual resources, and passion. Therefore, corporations can make positive contributions to this cycle based on their experience and expertise and social actors can bridge the gaps between corporations and communities. With this collaboration, sustainability can be achieved and maintained.
