My reflective journal and group pitch for the social enterprise project Second Chance Collective, completed during my semester abroad in the course Enterprising Solutions to Social Problems, serve as artifacts demonstrating my engagement with anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in practice. The goal of this project was to design a social enterprise addressing youth reoffending in the United Kingdom by creating a cooperative model that provides housing, employment training, and community reintegration support for young people leaving the criminal justice system. Through research and stakeholder analysis, our group examined how systemic barriers, including stigma, housing instability, employment discrimination, and social exclusion, disproportionately affect young people with criminal records. Using tools such as stakeholder empathy mapping and design thinking frameworks, we intentionally centered the lived experiences of marginalized youth in the development of our model, recognizing them not as passive recipients of services but as active participants in rebuilding their lives and communities .

Presenting this enterprise through a formal pitch to our course and a panel of professors provided valuable experience advocating for equitable and inclusive solutions within systems that often marginalize vulnerable populations. The process strengthened my ability to communicate how ADEI principles must be integrated into program design, policy thinking, and service delivery. Through both the collaborative design process and the final presentation, I developed a deeper understanding of how social workers engage in anti-oppressive practice by recognizing structural barriers and promoting strengths-based, inclusive approaches. Below is a link to my reflection that I submitted for the class, further demonstrating how I engage in ADEI.