SIFE Africa University

The SIFE Africa University Team was founded in November 2003 and is part of a global and dynamic effort to help change the world. SIFE stands for Students In Free Enterprise. There are over 1700 SIFE teams around the world in over 40 countries. SIFE teams are made up of university students. The main mission of these students is to “Create Economic Opportunity for others”. Teams achieve this by developing educational outreach projects. There are four major SIFE principles these are

• Market Economics
• Entrepreneurship
• Personal Financial Success Skills
• Business Ethics.

As AU SIFE we also have a number of educational outreach projects. Currently there are 40 SIFE members at Africa University. These members are drawn from all faculties, from Humanities and Social Sciences, Management and Administration, Education and Agriculture.
We also have a faculty advisor Mr L. Mareya who is our link with the university. Not only is he our link with the university but with the business community of Mutare. As a team we have really gained a lot from him and we really appreciate his work.

We also have a Business Advisory Board (B.A.B). These are influential members of our community that we brought together to: provide mentorship and guidance, offer advice on projects, be a link to our community, provide access to needed resources, critique presentations before competitions. These individuals are drawn from a wide range of fields from entrepreneurs to politicians. Our BAB team has been of great help in all our fund raisings and projects.

ACHIEVEMENTS
Every country organises a National Competition. The first SIFE Zimbabwe competitions were held on the 10th of June 2004 at Holiday Inn Harare. Four Universities, namely Africa University, University of Zimbabwe, National University of Science and Technology and Catholic University, participated. Teams present projects to community and business leaders serving as judges. Teams will have to present a written report to the judges. Each team will have 37 minutes of live presentation i.e.
• 7 min set-up
• 24 minutes presentation
• 5 min question and answer
• 1 minute tear down
Each team will have 5 people who will be doing the verbal presentation and 1 operating the power point presentation.
Africa University won the SIFE Zimbabwe National Competitions and automatically won the ticket to represent ZIMBABWE at the SIFE World Cup in Barcelona Spain from the 25th - 27th September 2004. After a had and long struggle of fund raising for our air fares and some other human obstacles we finally travelled to Spain with our then faculty advisor Professor Tagwira. Many thanks goes to the University, ministry of high and tertiary education, and members of Mutare community who gave us an unwavering support on our projects and for the trip to Spain.
11 students travelled to Spain these were myself Nigel. Leighton Chitambo, Gibbs Mukomberanwa, Fadzai Marudza, Sharon Nyabereka, Kingsley Kalusha, Eddah Jowah, Ethel Nherera, Onai Mtengwa, Muchinei Chimbetete, Rufaro Mhuruyengwe, Itai Mutukwa.
The presenting team had Kingsley, Sharon, Itai, Fadzai, Rufaro and Nigel Leighton on the I.T (power point). We held the competitions at Princessa Sofia Inter-Continental Hotel we were put into leagues. We were the runners up in our league in which Nigeria won and proceeded to the finals. The finalist included U.S.A, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Canada and Nigeria. Australia’s Curtin University of Technology won the World Cup, USA Flagler College was the runner up.

The height of our success came when we were named the best new comer and won the Best Rookies Award. We also won the “Spirit” award, the national championship, and the 1st runners up award. Africa University came with more trophies than any other university. This success would have not been possible without the work of the dedicated AU SIFE team, our BAB team, university administration, the Mutare community and last but not least our advisor Prof. Tagwira. I salute you all. We certainly did the Nation pride; we presented our awards to the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education Dr Herbert Murerwa. We were also featured on the television program ‘Breaking New Ground’ on Zimbabwe TV which reaches approximately 3million people. We also came out in the Southern Times a newspaper that covers all the SADC countries, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Zambia just to mention but a few. We certainly raised the flag of Africa University high.

Our great thanks and praise goes to THEE our Lord GOD for taking us that far and our prayer is that you continue to guide and inspire us in all our activities.