On Feb. 2, UMass Boston officially launched its first chapter of the global non-profit organization, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE). The chapter was founded in Jan. 2012 by UMass Boston sophomore Jared Ward, who is also its current CEO.
According to SIFE’s website, its mission is to “bring together a diverse network of university students, academic professionals and industry leaders around the world who have a shared mission of creating a better, more sustainable world through the positive power of business.”
Ward explained that he first heard about SIFE from a friend, which spurred him to do more research into the organization. He felt the organization was a perfect fit for UMass Boston, so even though he had just recently transferred here, he decided to create a chapter: “I felt like UMass Boston needed a version of SIFE here and it also helped me to get more involved on campus.”
Ward described one of the initiatives of the UMB SIFE team this year as “trying to bring UMass together.” Ward explained that to do this, they had to carry out several events and fundraisers like the Jimmy Fund dodge ball tournament and a discussion of Restorative Justice led by Professor Lageson of the Criminal Justice department.
“We wanted these events to spread awareness about SIFE and in turn spread awareness about our causes,” said Ward.
Ward went on to reveal another initiative of theirs this year: working with youths on a national, global and local platform. To help in their cause, several members of the team underwent training to become Certified Mediators of Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice is an approach to justice which focuses on the needs of the victims, offenders and the involved communities, as opposed to simply punishing the offenders.
The training their team members received enables them to carry out friendship mediation circles in Middle or High Schools. These circles tackle issues like peer pressure, violence in schools, and settling conflicts with peers. The school in which these circles were carried out is Timilty Public Middle School, Roxbury.
According to Ward, the different SIFE teams around the world build business portfolios containing all the initiatives they’ve undertaken, along with all the work they’ve done, and present these portfolios in competitions against each other.
The initiatives carried out by the UMB SIFE were all recorded and used to build their portfolio hence they were able to participate in the competition which was hosted by the parent organization SIFE USA. “Typically teams don’t compete until after two years and even though we were just ten weeks old, we decided to compete,” said Ward.
The UMass Boston team won two different trophies for their efforts – Rookie of the Year and First Runner Up. This means that if they had placed a spot higher, the team would have advanced to the nationals.
The students who participated and presented during the tournament are Janine Brown, Junior Pena, Adam Reilly, Lou Landolfi, Frana Burtness-Adams, Leanna Santos and Steph Holland
“I feel extremely proud of myself and my team. We overcame numerous setbacks and being so new, I’m proud that we were even able to get to competition. I’m phenomenally astounded at what we have accomplished. The reward for us was just being able to compete. It was an honor and a privilege to be able to walk away with two trophies,” said Ward.