Twenty four 20 students from Brisbane’s multicultural Yeronga State High School had the most exciting business experience of their young lives thanks to sponsorship by the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City.
In mid-October, they were participants in the business simulation program, ECOMAN, provided by the Queensland Private Enterprise Centre. For three days, they swapped school rooms for conference rooms on the 45th floor of a CBD office building provided by venue sponsor Hays Recruitment.
Most of the students come from migrant and refugee backgrounds. Several of them are yet to become proficient in English. Yet, with the guidance of experienced facilitators, they broke into four management teams to pilot competing virtual companies through four years of business activity, and finally present their results to a panel of “shareholders” at an “Annual General Meeting”.
QPEC, comprising a group of interested senior business and educational people, has provided ECOMAN programs to more than 10,000 students over the past 20 years. Rotary in the Brisbane CBD has sponsored an ECOMAN program every year for 17 years, first by Brisbane North and by Brisbane Mid-City since 2011. During that time, Rotary has built a supportive relationship with Yeronga State High School, sponsoring ECOMAN and in other ways.
Managing Director for Queensland of Hays Recruitment, Mr Darren Buchanan, told students that his organisation was very pleased to be a new venue sponsor of ECOMAN this year. Emphasising the importance of such educational activities, he congratulated the students on their achievements in running and building the virtual companies.
Photo: Collin Myers (top left) from the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City, and Simon Bristow and Darren Buchanan from Hays Recruitment Queensland, join Yeronga State High School students for the ECOMAN business simulation course held at Hays in Brisbane’s CBD.
