Enterprising students take skills to LA

>>Sheffield students win national finals thanks to community projects



SEVEN Sheffield University students will take part in an international entrepeneurial challenge in Los Angeles this September after beating off 39 other universities to represent the UK.

Students from the Sheffield Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) took part in SIFE´s national competition in London’s Canary Wharf, impressing judges with a report on their community projects, which included trips to poor, rural communities in Ghana, Bangladesh and South Africa to equip them with business skills.

Kirsty Maggs, 22, from Sheffield SIFE said: “In 2005 when Sheffield SIFE started, it was everyone’s dream to win the National Championship, to show that students in Sheffield have the entrepreneurship and abilities to really help those in our community to overcome a range of problems.

“Since 2005 all members of Sheffield SIFE have worked hard to make this dream a reality. Winning the National Competition and being able to represent SIFE UK in the International Competition really means a lot to us.”

Janaan Abdurahman, 20, a first year studying philosophy and psychology, joined SIFE in fresher’s week after being invited to go along to a meeting. She is now a member of the executive director team.

She said: “We had a number of different reports to show and we had to have a slideshow with six presenters and one clicker. I’d just got back from a project in Lasotha three weeks to the day before the competition so it was all systems go from there, it was ridiculous.

“There were 20 of us all together who went down to London. We wanted to take everyone that wanted to go. There are 346 members so we opened it up to whoever wanted to come and could afford to do so. Mainly, having the support was really important to us.”

The team was fast-tracked straight through to the semi finals from their regional heat, meaning that they had longer to prepare than some other teams who had to continue competing with other teams for a place.

“We were lucky that we got straight through to the semi finals but it was still a massive surprise. Nottingham won four years in a row but didn’t even get through this year”, said Janaan.

SIFE UK will pay for the accomodation of the 7 students whilst in Los Angeles, but all other costs estimated at £22000 including flights, must be bought from funds raised by the students.

Janaah said: “We are hoping for sponsorship for as many people as possible, the rest will be fundraising. We are hoping to do a coffee morning for University staff and possible a bike ride down the country.

"We originally thought about cycling to LA, but then realised we probably wouldn’t even get there in time for the competition!”

There were tears of joy when the team won at the national competition, having only got to second and third place at the annual competition since the Sheffield SIFE team was set up in 2005.

Helen Parrott, Enterprise Business Manager at the University of Sheffield´s White Rose Centre for Excellence in the Teaching & Learning of Enterprise, said: “Sheffield SIFE’s outstanding achievement recognises the significant impact of the student´s work over recent years here in Sheffield and in Lasotha, India and Ghana. Their next challenge is to raise the money to take the team to LA to represent the UK.”

The 346 students in the Sheffield SIFE team raised £28,570 last year, working on projects which have made an impact on the lives of over 2,880 people. This included working with homeless people to create a jam-making business called Bevin’s Finest Preserve.

The students are now looking for sponsorship for various social enterprise projects, such as those mentioned above. If you are interested, please contact Calum Moore at Calum@sheffieldsife.org or visit their website.

Memorial for Barnsley's lost babies

>> Mother whose baby was taken at birth fundraises to commemorate babies buried in mass graves

A MOTHER whose young baby was buried in an unmarked mass grave in Barnsley is raising funds to install a memorial in her memory.

Carole Taylor, 69, is the latest in a string of South Yorkshire parents affected by mass graves across the area. Her daughter, Michelle, who died in 1971 from suspected lung failure, had been buried there for 10 years before she discovered it.

She said: “My daughter, when I found her, was buried in a grave with 14 other children. Some of those mothers would never have even held their babies.

“This memorial is a chance to give them the decency and the respect they were never afforded.
There isn’t even a place for people to lay flowers at the moment.”

Carole, a former landlady and market worker, set up her charity shop Angels on Doncaster
Road in Barnsley two years ago to raise money for the memorial. So far she has raised £5,800 of the £11,000 she needs. She will be leaving the shop in September when the lease comes up.

Her memorial follows on from similar projects carried out by the Dearne Memorial Group and Barnsley Cemetaries Project, who raised money for two memorials in Thurnscoe and Bolton on Dearne.

Stephen Davies, 63, a retired miner and former serviceman, set-up the group and works to collate burial records with the actual sites of graves so that parents can trace their lost children.

He said: “A woman came along once looking for her child and it just so happened that she was stood next to where her child was buried.”

He and wife Betty, who live in Thurnscoe, lost two children as young parents in the 1970s. Their son Peter was born with spinibifida, and died in 1970. Then their daughter Dawn, who had congenital abnormalities, died in 1971. Both were taken away from their parents and buried in unmarked graves, but the family did not know their whereabouts until some 30 years later.

Stephen said: “It wasn’t until my daughter enquired into their deaths that we were told that Peter was buried in a cemetary in Sheffield. We had always thought he was in Barnsley.”

Founded in 2002, the group was asked to look after the cemetaries and plots. Stephen decided to go through each individual plot to record the burials, but when he got to plot number 405, he found a pauper’s grave, with 83 children buried together in it.

The group decided to raise £5000 for a memorial, with funds raised in various events including two concerts by the Barnsley male voice choir. When they found more than 750 children in unmarked graves at Bolton on Dearne, they raised a further £1400 for a memorial tribute to them.

Stephen said: “Many babies were buried here after typhoid - there were 1300 in Barnsley alone. Some had small pox, cholerha, whooping cough. In them days people died from the flu and didn’t have the money for separate graves.

“Many of them were brought straight in as still borns or ‘backyard babies’ and just put in there in a mass grave.”

Stephen now runs the Barnsley group’s website which holds records dating from 1801 right up to January 2010. He receives emails from people all over the world who are affected by these mass graves, from Australia to Minnesota, USA.

He said: “Me and my wife lost a baby and in those days it was a case of ‘you go home and rest and we’ll take care of it’, they took the child away from you. There was nothing ceremonial about it.

“Now we receive great support from the community, the council, councillors and the church - the local Father has given services for us before.”

Further funds will be raised for Michelle Taylor’s memorial at a fundraising event at East Dene Working Men’s Club on 8 July featuring bands, a buffet, raffle and bingo.