Entrepreneurship award: ITE Team is it
They beat Hwa Chong, RJC with bags
Liew Hanqing The New Paper 6 Sep 08;
THESE vinyl tote bags are colourful, trendy and perhaps somewhat familiar-looking.
You've probably seen them along Orchard Road - they used to be banners.
This idea of converting old vinyl banners into tote bags has won a group of students from ITE College East top honours at the Mayor's Imagine Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (Mise) 2008 last month.
The team, which consists of students from the ITE College East's entrepreneurship club, beat teams from schools including Raffles Junior College, Hwa Chong Institution, Temasek Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic for top spot in the competition's category for ITE, junior college and polytechnic students.
The contest, organised at the national level, is aimed at raising awareness of social issues through enterprise action.
Team leader Pang Hui Yi, 19, said the team came up with the idea while some of them were strolling on Orchard Road a few months ago.
She said: 'We saw these banners hanging around. They looked pretty durable so we thought maybe we could recycle them.'
They took pictures of the banners and started contacting banner owners, asking them whether they would donate used banners to their cause.
'The response was overwhelming,' she recalled.
HSBC Singapore alone donated 100 banners to their project.
The team worked with voluntary welfare organisations including Care Community Services Society, Suri Stitch and the women's group from Tanglin-Cairnhill, a district under Tanjong Pagar GRC.
Women members of these organisations provided sewing services for the team's project.
Mr Albertt Chua, course manager of Business and Services at ITE College East, said the women who helped sew the bags were mostly homemakers or old folks who needed the extra work.
They were paid $2 for each bag they sewed, which came from the proceeds. It takes about 10 minutes to sew a bag.
Sales of the bags - which go for between $12 and $18 - have been encouraging. To date, the team has sold more than 600 via word of mouth, online auction sites and popular blogs.
Student Tan Wei Ren, 22, who was in charge of selling the bags online, said about nine bloggers were interested in promoting the bags on their websites.
He said: 'They felt that what we were doing was very creative.'
The proceeds from the sales will go towards paying the women who sew them, and buying better sewing machines for them to use.
It was a hard-earned victory for the team, who faced stiff competition from teams they felt were more impressive.
Recalled team member Nicole Chen, 18: 'We were all not very confident - the speakers from the other schools were really good. We had to work hard on our speech and confidence level.'
At their team meetings, the students had to discuss their presentation strategies in addition to the mundane tasks of preparing the used banners for sewing.
Cleaning up
The team had to clean all the dirt from the banners, then cut them to shape.
Recalled team member Low Jun Hua, 18: 'It was quite fun washing the banners though. We sometimes ended up splashing water at each other.'
But the hard work paid off when the team found out they had emerged tops in the contest, winning the school a cash prize of $3,000.
They have also secured up to $20,000 in seed funding for their social enterprise.
The win came as a surprise to team member Kenny Lim, 24, who said their competitors were confident, delivering their speeches with ease.
He said: 'We put in so much hard work but ultimately, our idea works because it is environmentally friendly and appeals to the public.'
Added the team's teacher in charge, Mrs Dion Lee: 'It's not every day that an innovative idea is born. We are very proud of the team.'
