“Many people want to help but often they don’t have the channels.” – how eBay is good for poor women and why students bother.

Lisa Wu, Student, Founder & President, SIFE Beijing Chapter, Beijing, P. R. China

“Often we didn’t exactly know how to start certain activities, but we knew that we want to help and in the end we always found people that could give us some advice; sometimes our teachers, our parents, experienced business people or people out of the SIFE worldwide network” – Lisa, 21, reflects upon her experiences from her first year as SIFE president in Beijing. Under her leadership and with a lot of enthusiasm and hard work, 39 students at Beijing Foreign Studies University implemented a “Rural Women Training Project”, where they teach English, business and personal finance and business ethics. They organized a case study competition to improve entrepreneurship skills among Chinese students, they started to establish a database with up-to-date economic information that can help SIFE in its projects, and last but for sure not least they tested different marketing strategies and started an on-line promotion to market traditional Chinese Art produced by disabled women in Beijing. “All in all this year was extremely exciting”, Lisa tells us, “and I learned a lot by applying my knowledge in practice. It’s been a huge satisfaction to help through the different projects and I hope that we can even do more next year”.

Enjoy reading more about some of the things we discussed with Lisa and her thoughts in the selected quotations below. You may be able to read more in our book “MyImpact”.

Lisa Wu’s selected quotations:
“I have always wanted to contribute to the world, to make some change.”

“I believe that charity in the sense of just giving money away is not the right kind of help. I think it’s better to help people to stand on their own feet and to earn their living with their own hands.”

“We started with a small group by putting up fliers and interviewing volunteers. At first, people were skeptical, thought we wanted to get some money or something out of it.”

“I was impressed when we first met the women we now work with. They are disabled and have been laid off after the privatization of the state companies they used to work for. They have great handicraft skills, but they cannot take their product to market. Working out a strategy to sell their products on eBay was not only helpful but also fun for us.”

“The girls our age at the rural school suffer so much. And what we teach them really helps.”

“My Mom was an inspiration and a great support. She took me to church and to charities and always said that helping others is important.”

“I don’t think money itself is right or wrong. If you have some, you can maybe have a better impact.”

“Life is limited; I would like to leave something that lasts longer than I.”

Some background on Lisa Wu:
Born in a town at the Yangtze River, Lisa came to Beijing to study Marketing, especially e-commerce. In 2005 she heard about SIFE and decided to establish a team at her university. She called together some friends; they posted fliers looking for more members and interviewed the volunteers that they later divided in several project teams. Lisa heads the whole organization and continues searching new ideas, and was also selected by HSBC and SIFE Headquarters from 100 student delegates of 27 countries as one of the only 6 panellists to share her experience at the 2005 HSBC Financial Literacy Forum held in Toronto in October, on the topic of “Financial Literacy Tools for Successful Women Entrepreneurs”.

Some background on SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise):
SIFE is a global non-profit organization active in over 40 countries and territories. Working in partnership with business and higher education, SIFE establishes student teams on university campuses. These teams are led by faculty advisors and they are challenged to develop community outreach projects that reach SIFE's four educational topics:
- Market economics
- Entrepreneurship
- Personal financial success skills
- Business ethics
SIFE Team members leverage their personal educational experiences, the expertise of their faculty advisors, the support of their local business advisory boards and the resources of their institutions to implement programs that create real economic opportunities for members of their communities.
Teams find creative ways to teach children about the global economy, provide necessary assistance to aspiring entrepreneurs, present effective solutions for small business owners to increase profits, help low-income families achieve financial independence and emphasize the importance of ethical and moral business practices. The combined efforts of SIFE Teams and thousands of executives who contribute time and resources around the world bring a higher standard of living and quality of life to millions of individuals each year.
In 2002, SIFE launched in China in the city of Shanghai, and expanded to Beijing in 2005. Beijing Foreign Studies University was the first college to register with SIFE. Its now 39 members spent more than 3’000 hours working on outreach programs and have impacted the life of 25.000 people in the first year of the team’s existence.

If you would like to engage with the work of Lisa Wu or get to know more about SIFE please visit www.sife.org and www.sife.3322.net
or, for more specific opportunities, contact joanna.stefanska@myimpact.ch or wolfgang.hafenmayer@myimpact.ch directly.