Fir Vale scoop BiG prize

 A group of students from Fir Vale School in Sheffield spent the evening celebrating as they were announced as the winning team of this year’s BiG Challenge.  The excited team of pupils found out that their prize will be a trip of a lifetime to the cosmopolitan city of Paris.

 

Almost 300 teams from 18 schools across the city entered this year’s competition which challenged the students to take £25 and set up and run their business over a six month period. Their objective was to increase that £25 by as much as possible, with teams being judged on their teamwork, innovation and entrepreneurship.

 

9 Peas in a Pod, a team of Year 10 pupils, discovered that they were the winners of the BiG Challenge at last night’s glitzy awards ceremony held at Cutlers Hall, Sheffield.  9 Peas in a Pod were concerned about the increase of gun, knife crime and gang violence in the local area, and so designed, created and sold a range of t-shirts and bags to raise awareness about the issue to the local community. 

 

‘Zola Beads’ and Aids awareness beaded badges were also sold by 9 Peas in a Pod for Fir Vale’s partnership school ZOLA, which is in South Africa

 

The team, which consisted of students Grace Adafia, Rose Almond, Samera Aslam, Megan Crookes, Ashleigh Jenkinson, Henna Khan and Tahira Khan, made over £200 profit which was all donated to Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

 

Grace Adafia said: “We still can’t comprehend that we have won the BiG Challenge and have the chance to go to Paris. It’s a dream come true. Winning the BiG Challenge has made us believe in ourselves and believe that we can succeed. We learnt to co-operate with each other, learnt more about ourselves as individuals and were able to identify our individual skills. We never allowed our mistakes to dictate our future.”

 

Richard Steele, business manager at Fir Vale School commented: “The BiG Challenge has been a fantastic opportunity and learning curve for our pupils.  The competition is about building confidence, increasing determination and encouraging students to become successful in business.  The pupils have worked really hard on the BiG Challenge and the school has been right behind them. We will certainly be encouraging our pupils to enter again next year.”

 

Kevin Bennett, Director of BiG, said: “All of the young people who took part in the BiG Challenge can be extremely proud of themselves.  Not only have the teams raised over £17,000 for charity - they have also learnt extremely important business skills for the future.

 

“As part of our programme to support people in business, we need to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship from a young age. The pupils in local schools and colleges could go on to be the city’s business leaders. By getting young people involved in business and encouraging them to be enterprising, we can show pupils that it can be fun and exciting being an entrepreneur.”

 

Former Dragon’s Den contestant Levi Roots, who is famous for his Reggae Reggae Sauce, hosted the event.  He said: “Competitions like the BiG Challenge give young people a fantastic opportunity to get involved in business enterprise from a young age. The teams that took part in this year’s competition have taken the standard up a notch.

 

Levi added: “I’m looking forward to hearing about 9 Peas in a Pod’s adventure in Paris and for members of that team to contact me to see if I can help and mentor them with their future business plans.”

 

Other prizes, including best website, best presentation and best future potential, were awarded at the ceremony, which was attended by over 300 members of local schools and the business community. The total prize fund was £75,000 with money going to the winning schools, and the trip to Paris, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the winning team.

 

The 2009 BiG Challenge has been sponsored by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), SENTA, Sheffield Technology Parks and the South Yorkshire Investment Fund.

The BiG Challenge is part of the BiG: Make it Your Business programme aimed at increasing entrepreneurship across Sheffield. To find out more visit www.thebigwebsite.org,uk