Making a difference: Needs-based enterprises

[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 1  14 April - 12 May 2008 ]

By Amanda Tattam

Making and selling soft and cuddly toys is helping to build the business skills of people with disabilities, thanks to the entrepreneurship of University of Melbourne student volunteers working with disability community service provider Yooralla. Members of the University’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) program started the business, called Basebears. with clients at several Yooralla locations last year.

Basebears is now a Yooralla small business which makes and distributes plush toys. A successful Easter season has seen the operation sell more than 200 bunnies and bears, with the profits being ploughed back into the business.

Yooralla Basebears owes its existence to SIFE’s Enabled Initiatives project which channels the interests and strengths of Yooralla’s disabled members into entrepreneurial ventures.

The Basebears team provides a learning framework and resources and helps out with business skills workshops and support for Yooralla members.

SIFE volunteer Basebears team member, Anna Taylor (right), a fourth year Arts/Commerce student, describes the project as rewarding.

“Being able to apply the skills we are learning at Melbourne in a practical way to benefit our community, and watching the project develop over time, has been very satisfying,” she says.

Basebears is also part of a program to improve literacy and numeracy among clients, according to Yooralla Transition Education Tutor Jo Trinder, at Yooralla’s Ferntree Gully Centre.

“The idea is to learn some accounting and engage more with the community. Clients are doing things like going to the Post Office to organise the distribution of the toys, and that gives them more independence,” she says. Basebears’ next phase will involve making and selling toy elephants.

Details on SIFE at the University of Melbourne are available at www.bcom.unimelb.edu.au/bachelor/sife.html

Toys created by the Basebears team are available from Yooralla ($7.50 plus P&P) – contact jo.trinder@yooralla.com.au