Contact:

Chantelle Buffie, 604.763.7211; chantelle@thefusionkitchen.com
Xinyan Chen, Enactus SFU, 778.886.9265; external.relations@EnactusSFU.com
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.9017; Marianne_Meadahl@sfu.ca

Photos: http://at.sfu.ca/XXfayO

Chantelle Buffie, a student in Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, has been named the 2013 HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow at the Enactus Canada national competition held in Toronto this week.

And Media Minds, a media literacy program for immigrants run by Enactus SFU, was chosen as the RBC Newcomer Advancement Project Fund best project for impacting the lives of new Canadians.

Buffie is being recognized for her efforts to promote sustainability and help immigrant women to land jobs. She won the regional title earlier this spring and netted the national prize over six other regional representatives.

The Surrey resident is project manager of the SFU Entrepreneur of the Year (SEY) program and co-founder of Fusion Kitchen, a startup social enterprise that offers cultural cooking classes in Vancouver as a teambuilding platform for immigrant women, who gain experience, confidence and skills to increase their employment opportunities in Canada.

Media Minds was created last fall by SFU communication student Hope Wang, a Richmond resident and 2012 YWCA young Woman of Distinction nominee. The digital literacy program pairs ESL students with video-editing skills to create mini self-documentaries of their lives. Its aim is to enhance students’ storytelling abilities and increase their employability through teaching video skills.

Meanwhile Enactus SFU students competing in the Capital One Financial Education Challenge were also first runners up, placing 2^nd of 41 teams, for their presentation of two financial literacy programs, Count on Me and Hunger Actions. The first prepares at-risk youth for their future financial needs with the latter aims to improve the quality of life for low-income single mothers by maximizing budgets spent on nutritional food.

In its overall presentation the Enactus SFU team placed in the top 16 of 51 teams.

Enactus Canada, formerly represented as Students in Free Enterprise, has chapters at universities across Canada and is described as a community of student, academic and business leaders committed to “using entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better, more sustainable world.”

Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries.

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Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities.