You know that thing where you go for a job or an internship to get legit experience and then they’re all like, “You need more experience”, and then you go, “This would be my first placement/job, so I don’t really have experience?” And then you both sit there looking at the floor, wondering where it all went wrong generationally… (hint: if you laugh at different memes, there’s gonna be friction).

Project Everest Ventures (PEV) knows the frustration. PEV is an organisation made up of social entrepreneurs who believe in leaving the classroom and changing the world—y’know, putting everything you’ve learned at uni into practice irl.

But don’t take our word for it

Isabella Duffie was the winner from our competition with Project Everest Ventures earlier this year where we gave away the opportunity for one lucky student to take part in an overseas internship in Fiji.

Isabella is 20 years old. Isabella is still a student. When she’s not out helping save the world, Isabella is busy studying a Bachelor of Arts and Law at the University of Tasmania.

When we asked Isabella what the best part of her Project Everest Ventures internship was and what her overall experience in Fiji was like, she told us...

“The people were really friendly, they invited us into their homes to talk, they showed us how they run their business, they offered us breadfruit that they had been cooking or brought us into their village feast and offered us an abundance of food. Village visits were the best part of my month, as it opened my eyes to a different way of living and furthered my understanding on waste management practices in Fiji.”

Ventures currently take place most months of the year in Fiji, Malawi, India, and Timor Leste, with projects covering the environment, health, agriculture, sustainability, and ending hunger.

PEV partners with uni's all over Australia, which means it’s fully eligible to be placed on your HECS/HELP payment scheme (some uni's even have grants available that cover a student’s entire time overseas!).

This is your shot to explore and work on issues you’re passionate about with like-minded people. Plus, on a personal development level, the ventures not only count towards your degree but will also sharpen your social and leadership skills.

Wth is social enterprise?

PEV aren’t a not-for-profit (NFP)—they specialise in social enterprise. PEV defines this as a: business that sells socially beneficial goods or services (read more). As part of their ethos, they believe that:

“Being a NFP though doesn’t solve, what we feel, is one of the greatest misperceptions of our time—that creating social impact and creating wealth, in an ecological way, are mutually exclusive.”

Long story short? They’re keen to create a new gen of social entrepreneurs: a generation that doesn’t stop doing social work once they’ve graduated and begun chasing their ambitions.

So… wanna make the future better for one billion people while seeing the globe and giving your degree a boost?

Get in touch with PEV.