Enterprising Origami
Innovative: Skills Challenge students J’Maine Steadford, Sheldon Panton, Tatiana Pestana and Ana Santos with their certificate and prizes for innovation and hard work at the Lambeth Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2009.
November 2009
Students from Lambeth College’s Skills Challenge: BTEC Entry Certificate course at our Vauxhall Centre have pulled off an amazing achievement this month at the Lambeth Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2009.
The students took part in a project to create, manufacture, market and sell a product to the general public at the ‘Young Entrepreneurs Market’ held earlier in the month in Waterloo. The aim of the market, organised by Lambeth Council, is to give young people in the borough a real experience of work and enterprise and to develop the skills and qualities needed to be successful in business.
Our team designed and made, using the art of Origami paper folding, hundreds of decorative paper flowers, leaves, plant pots, bouquets and hanging baskets. The next step was to figure out a price tag for each item in order to assure a successful sale whilst still making an overall profit. The students had to ensure good quality and stock control as well as displaying effective sales techniques.
At the awards ceremony our students won first prize for ‘Most Innovative Product’ and were then announced as finishing in the top three for the ‘Biggest Profit’ award.
Skills Challenge student Sheldon Panton (17) said: “I can’t believe we made such a big profit. That was something we weren’t expecting even though we all worked so hard to be successful. We wanted our market stall to be better than all the others and to attract lots of customers and I think we achieved that.”
Ana Santos (17) was ecstatic the moment their awards were announced by journalist and broadcaster Henry Bonsu and was first on to the stage to collect the prize. She said: “We have worked hard, put in the hours and it’s been great fun. We’ve all done our best and gotten engrossed in the project. I’m so proud!”
Their Team Leader, Louise McNestrie, was full of praise for her students. “They’ve conducted themselves impeccably and gone about each task with great enthusiasm,” she said, “The quality of the work is superb and customers at our stall found it hard to believe that the students had only learnt the art of origami recently and hadn’t years of experience behind them. The students themselves have learnt an awful lot more than just paper folding though. They have discovered, first-hand, that hard work and dedication can bring about high achievement. It may be paper flowers today but who knows what they will achieve tomorrow?”
