Mayo student leads University of Limerick team to national Enactus success
Katie McNicholas, a past pupil of Craggagh National School and St. Louis Community School, Kiltimagh, led the University of Limerick Enactus team as it competed on the national stage against nine other colleges to win the coveted title of Enactus Ireland Champions, the first ever win for UL.
Enactus is a global organisation that supports third level students in setting up social enterprises to tackle social issues in both local and global communities.
The organisation is in operation across 35 countries and within Enactus Ireland there are 10 participating colleges.
The team from UL consists of 143 students from a range of different courses and year groups, all united by their passion to make a real difference both in Ireland and abroad.
This year, Enactus UL developed and expanded six social enterprises to levels never before achieved by the team, directly impacting the lives of over 2,000 people through their initiatives.
Anytime of the Month and Moyo Nua were the two Enactus UL social enterprises that were presented at the National Competition.
Anytime of the Month tackles period poverty and period stigma through their network of friendly strangers and period positive workshops.
Moyo Nua has created a handheld seed planter for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to eliminate back pain suffered from farming by hand.
After three days of tough competition, the judges crowned Enactus UL the champions of Ireland, recognising their social innovation, leadership and commitment to positive change.
Katie is the Team Lead of the 143 students in Enactus UL as well as running one of their flagship projects, Anytime of the Month.
She said: “All of the projects in Enactus UL are run throughout the college year on a 100% volunteer basis by students.
"We are massively proud of the whole team involved in running these initiatives, all of the hours spent on zoom together in the evenings have really paid off.
"Being the first ever team from UL to win the Enactus Ireland National Competition is a huge achievement that we will be celebrating for a long time to come.
"It still feels surreal to say that we are now Team Ireland and bringing our projects to the international stage.”
As the Enactus Ireland National Champions, the UL team will represent Ireland at the Enactus World Cup from October 14 to 21 next.
Each of the 35 Enactus countries are represented by their National Champion at the World Cup in the hopes of being recognised as the best Enactus team globally.