Year 9 Social Enterprise Intensive 

Year 9 Impact Social Enterprise Intensive              

Josie Clyne and Lachlan Griplas, Year 9 Student Leaders

While the rest of the Senior School headed off to camp, the Year 9s immersed themselves in the Social Enterprise Intensive—an amazing week that significantly accelerated progress on our It’s Everyone’s Business project.

The week began with an excursion into the city, where we visited various social enterprises in small groups. My group visited HoMie, a streetwear brand that supports young people experiencing homelessness or hardship by providing retail training and employment opportunities. 

It was a powerful and eye-opening experience. Other groups visited organisations such as Good Cycles, QV Women’s Centre, Meals With Impact, Worthy Cause and Collingwood Children’s Farm. These visits helped us identify key features of successful social enterprises that we could incorporate into our own initiatives.

For the remainder of the week, we were based at Monash University’s Clayton Campus, where we developed our social enterprise ideas through collaborative workshops. We created posters, slide decks and sales pitches while learning about clarity of messaging, unique value propositions and effective promotional strategies. Practising our pitches for the first time was a thrilling moment—it was incredible to see how far our ideas had come.

This experience has laid the foundation for the next exciting step: the Shark Tank-style pitch, where selected finalists will present their social enterprises to a panel of parents at the Social Enterprise Expo on Thursday 29 May. We can’t wait to see how our ideas evolve and the impact they might create!