Students Support Indigenous Entrepreneurs as Consultants on Service-Learning Trip
Image by courtesy
09/10/2024
By Ed Brennen
Manning School of Business students Kieran Scofidio, Wins Mathew and Takumi Wang knew they would be offering budgeting and financing advice to the owner of a poultry farm during their weeklong service-learning trip to Panama this summer.
Recipes for sustainable chicken feed were an added bonus.
“There’s obviously the business side of consulting, but she also needed some help with growing her chicken population,” says Scofidio, whose team spent several hours researching recipes online that Gumercinda Guerrero could use for her chicken coop in the community of Guacuco Guna (population: 165).
“We gave her recipes using tropical crops that she was already growing, like cacao and coffee, which she found extremely useful,” Scofidio says.
Image by Elise Magnant
Ten Manning School students, led by Asst. Teaching Prof. of Management Elise Magnant and MBA student Justin Baez Peguero ’24, provided consulting and financial literacy support to four small businesses in two Indigenous communities in eastern Panama. The trip was run by Global Brigades, a nonprofit health and sustainable development organization that provides volunteer opportunities for college students.
The Dean’s Office covered the cost of the trip; students were only responsible for incidentals during the last day of sightseeing in Panama City.
Annie Duong, a senior business major from Boston, applied for the experience because it was a “unique learning opportunity” that exposed her to “an entirely new culture and life.”
Image by courtesy
She and her team partnered with a bakery looking to expand its business. After learning about their clients’ lives and community, the students collaborated on a consulting plan.
“This experience showed me how I can directly impact someone's life with my experience and education in a way I never understood,” says Duong, whose concentrations are in finance and management information systems. “It has given me confidence and perspective on my career moving forward.”
Business majors Kendra Som, Hailey Appiah-Opoku, Iloni Taylor, Britney Tran, Brigitte Fundi and Adriana Mendez also participated in the trip. Other clients included a pharmacy and a women’s artisan group.
Magnant notes that the Global Brigades program focuses on the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education and its 17 sustainability goals, which “perfectly aligns and maps” to what she teaches in her courses.
Image by courtesy
“Students were exposed to not only another culture, but also to how Indigenous populations live, what they value and how they interact with the larger community around them,” Magnant says.
Scofidio, a transfer student from Groton, Massachusetts, is president of the International Business Association student organization. The experience in Panama whetted his appetite for living and working internationally someday.
“Travel was always very intimidating to me, but it’s a magical feeling when you land and realize you’re in a whole different place,” says Scofidio, who last spring traveled to Orlando, Florida, with 11 other Manning students for the annual Society for Advancement of Management conference.
“The opportunities that the Manning School and UMass Lowell have offered me in my first year here are awesome,” he says. “I am so grateful.”