Andrea Findley
Editor
WTAMU Student in Free Enterprise (SIFE) will compete at the SIFE USA National Exposition May 10-13 in Philadelphia, Penn. after receiving 15 consecutive wins at Regional Competition this month.
SIFE is an organization that allows business-minded students to reach out to their local and world communities through civic projects.
Jean Walker, finance instructor and SIFE adviser, had been with the program since it began in 1994.
“SIFE has been a growing organization over the past few years,” Walker said. “We have a nucleus of students that come in as freshman or sophomores and stay for several years, so there’s always strong continual leadership.”
The team is a diverse group of students with members from several countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, Trinidad & Tobago, Vietnam, Russia and Mexico.
Carolina Barbery, senior management major and co-president of SIFE, came to WT from Bolivia and helped execute the team’s Bolivian Bottle House project.
This project gained recognition among the top 20 teams at regional competition in the Environmental Sustainability Individual Competition. The team was also a top 20 finalist in the Program Sustainability Competition.
This is SIFE’s second year to be involved with the Bottle House project, first building a functional house made out of glass and plastic bottles for orphans and currently constructing a bathroom and kitchen for a mother and her three children.
“SIFE has changed my college experience dramatically,” Barbery said. “I joined three years ago and though I had tried to help others on my own, I now have a really good group of friends with the same aspirations to impact others. In SIFE, we empower so many people and learn invaluable skills in communication, leadership and presentation.”
The team is focused on national competition where they will give a formal video presentation in front of judges that reflects their efforts in market economics, success skills, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, business ethics and environmental sustainability.
At nationals, large and small universities compete against one another the first day to send 16 teams to the second day of competition.
SIFE has more than 60 members and will be taking 37 to national competition.
“Competition is a place for team bonding and idea generation,” Walker said. “SIFE is really about doing projects that benefit other people and what impresses me most about these students is that they have a passion for helping people through these projects.”