From staff reports
05/20/11
During this spring semester, Madeline Haddad, 2006 graduate from Hebron High School, Texas State University-San Marcos student and member of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), assisted in organizing the website of a local store called True Vineyard Marketplace. This store is the result of the efforts of True Vineyard Ministries (TVM), a nonprofit organization whose goal is to improve the overall standard of living and sustainability of widows in Rwanda, Africa.
Due to the 1994 genocide, more than 600,000 women are now widowed, most of whom were left uneducated and unable to provide for their families. TVM has reached out to these women and provided them with an opportunity to have full-time employment. The women are taught to make a variety of products ranging from jewelry and handbags to figurines made from recycled flip-flop materials. Diana Wiley, the executive director and founder of the organization, brings the products back to the United States and sells them in the Marketplace. The students of SIFE who are associated with this particular project then take pictures of the merchandise and organize them onto the store's website in order to increase TVM's market. All sale proceeds go directly back to the efforts in Rwanda. SIFE students took the initiative to volunteer their time to work on the site, offer a helping hand at the store and participate in fundraising events to improve the lives of the women who are in desperate need.
SIFE is a global, non-profit organization that is literally changing the world through highly dedicated student teams on more than 1600 university campuses in 40 countries. SIFE offers these students the opportunity to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise, thereby improving the standard of living for millions in the process.
Texas State SIFE is one of the leading collegiate teams within the United States. SIFE has been helping others achieve their dreams through free enterprise education for more than 25 years. Today, SIFE is the world's prominent and largest university-based free enterprise organization
For information visit http://www.business.txstate.edu/sife