Celeste Cruz / Vaquero Radio
ENACTUS held its Sustainable Opportunities for Advancement Recruitment (SOAR) training with Team Mario Thursday at the Rio Grande Valley College to prepare neurodivergent individuals with skills necessary in the workplace.
Team Mario is a non-profit local organization, whose mission is to help advocate for individuals with autism.
ENACTUS is a chapter at UTRGV that aims to create sustainability, empowerment and entrepreneurship in the community.
Assistant Professor of Practice of Management with the UTRGV Robert C. Vacker College of Business and Entrepreneurship and Faculty Advisor for ENACTUS Maria Leonard said the SOAR project began in 2019.
“We started with one of our students, her brother was a participant of Team Mario,” Leonard said. “And she wanted us to meet all of the participants of Team Mario so that they could gain some more social skills, so that they could make friends with our students and it started from there.”
She said the program is held through student-led training and mentoring programs, which helps these individuals to excel in the workplace.
“We thought that it was better if we help them get internships and train them more on professional skills,” Leonard said.
Program Director for Team Mario Lisa Becerra contributed to this project by helping students during lessons when they have trouble understanding a topic.
“I assist with either breaking down a particular concept,” Becerra said. “If a student has difficulty grasping a particular concept, they might need a little bit more support with communication. We’ll step in, we’ll try to facilitate those interactions.”
Leonard said the goal of SOAR is to assist Team Mario in developing their students professionally in order to become independent productive citizens. Team Mario selects participants every year and they usually range from 16 to 25 years of age.
She said they also collaborate with Workforce Solutions, a program that helps employers hire skilled workers and helps workers find jobs.
“They help us get them in the right program, in the right track,” Leonard said. “So that they can get an internship or a job at the end of the year-long program.”
Mentor for Team Mario Andrea Melendez said she became a mentor due to her interest in neurodivergent behavior.
“I was taking a behavioral analysis class and I was interested in the autistic population,” Melendez said. “By doing some of the research that I’ve done, aside from being a part of this club, I did notice that there was a really high unemployment rate for autistic individuals. So, I think it’s really important to be leaders, right, to mentor them in ways that may be in skills that they probably haven’t developed yet.”
Jace Rheiner believes being a student of Team Mario is important to get a job.
“Start working, making money, do stuff for sustainability,” Rheiner said. “It’s so important because it’s about taking care of resources to have other people run them too”.
ENACTUS chapter’s SOAR project is actively looking for more mentors. Those who are interested in being part of the project may contact rgvenactus@gmail.com.
This is Celeste Cruz for Vaquero Radio.
