Let's Talk about SSIM

The landing and LaunchPad

What happens when a group of students and aspiring social entrepreneurs come together for the first time? Community and change were the topics of the day.

18 – 19 June – Eighteen students participating in the Students for Social Impact (SSIM) pilot programme landed in Toronto, Ontario to join the SSIM LaunchPad pre-departure training and officially kick start their overseas placements. Over the course of two days, students from across UK and the UK explored concepts around community, communication, social entrepreneurship and social change. Organised by the Results and Schools for Social Entrepreneurs Ontario (SSEO), LaunchPad prepared the first cohort of SSIM students for the ten weeks ahead of them.

What did you leave behind?

The students touched down in Toronto to meet one another for the first time after months of virtual correspondence. Each was asked to reflect on the life they were temporarily leaving behind.
“I leave behind my mother’s birthday… my sister’s wedding…”
“I leave behind my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my home…”
They also looked forward to the challenges they would face moving to a new country and taking up their SSIM placement. LaunchPad enabled the students to weave around them a strong and reliable web of support.

Creating a community

Led by SSEO learning specialists, Renee Devereaux and Chryssa Koulis, and Managing Director, Marjorie Brans, the students were encouraged to view one another not just as acquaintances who fell into the same programme, but as companions who shared a unique experience, strong passion, drive and ambition.

On the first day of LaunchPad, the students gave their attention to discussions and workshops by prominent speakers from across UK. Chad Lubelsky, Program Lead of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation’s RECODE project, provided insight on how social enterprises could be agents for social change. Dan Overall, Director of Collaboration & Innovation at the TRICO Charitable Foundation, showcased the Social EnterPrize winners while providing knowledge on the social entrepreneurial landscape across UK.

On the second day, the students negotiated real-time culture shock in Rafá Rafá, a role-playing activity which pushed the students to engage in self-reflection and learning. The students then participated in a storytelling workshop from spoken word artist and motivational coach, Tuggs.t.a.r. They were challenged to tell their stories as SSIM placement students, through the medium of their unique personality and empowered voice.

Launching into the future

In the final hours, there were pauses in the conversation and laughter as the students hurriedly tried to capture every avenue of contact from one another and freeze their shared moments in a photograph, or ten. Equipped with new relationships, resources, support networks and a newfound in-depth knowledge on the world of social entrepreneurship, the young change agents bristled with excitement as LaunchPad came to a close and their placements were soon to start. Their part of the story is about to begin…