This article is part of a series of Dialog stories profiling Black students, staff and alumni within the George Brown College community in recognition of Black History Month.

Facing unprecedented challenges, discrimination and unfair treatment head-on is hard enough as is.

What is even harder is transcending such difficulties without letting them dim one’s integrity, positive outlook, or desire to help and nurture others so they may realize their full potential. Few individuals ever achieve all of this at once.

Sandra Adderley-Melbourne, the current president of Enactus and a student of the Business Administration-Marketing program at GBC, is one such individual.

Enactus is an international nonprofit organization that focuses on engaging students in leadership, innovation and entrepreneurial endeavours that offer solutions to environmental, social and economic issues. They operate across 35 countries, currently run 18,000 university programs and have over 70000 student members.

Adderley-Melbourne began her journey with GBC Enactus as a team member. She subsequently moved on to become a junior project coordinator, then project manager, vice president and finally, the president in January 2021. Last year, she was one of five finalists in the Canada-wide HSBC Women’s Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year Award.

One of the biggest challenges that Adderley-Melbourne has faced over the last couple of years was keeping Enactus team members motivated in the face of the demoralizing impacts of lockdowns during the pandemic.

“If you are not doing well mentally, you can’t get anything done,” she said.

To say that Adderley-Melbourne measured up to dealing with the lack of morale and mental health challenges amongst the team during this time may be an understatement. She went above and beyond. She balanced between looking after her own mental health as well as being available for members who needed help, she said. And despite her own struggles, Adderley-Melbourne led and motivated the team so well that the GBC Enactus Team won the Most Engaged Team Award in Canada in 2021.

Moreover, the culture that she set within the team in dealing with mental hardships inspired most of the team members to complete certifications in mental wellness through a workshop conducted by Enactus last year.

Adderley-Melbourne mentioned that she is profoundly grateful for being a part of GBC Enactus, since the work she did at the club allowed her to cope with the pain of losing her father to cancer. However, she spoke at length about different aspects of racial and gender inequality that have affected her during her time with Enactus, and shared how she has had to deal with these biases from some members of the GBC team in the past.

“It wasn’t until I became project manager that I noticed that people treated me in a different way,” she said.

On several occasions, she said, team members behaved and spoke to her in a way that reflected gender biases directed to a woman in a leadership position. Adderley-Melbourne always addressed issues related to any prejudiced behaviour head-on and communicated directly with people who acted in that manner.

“I had to tell them that in Enactus, we don’t run things like that. I had to communicate to them that there is no place for that kind of attitude and ideas within GBC Enactus,” she said.

She has made a point of standing up to discriminatory behaviour for the sake of other members of Enactus, as three out of the four current vice presidents are women from different parts of the world.

However, Adderley-Melbourne, who was born in The Bahamas and moved to Canada through an adoption agency when she was nine, said that while there have been many people who have spoken to her in a derogatory way, she’s not entirely sure if such behaviour were influenced by a disregard for women in leadership or anti-Black racism.

“Growing up in a predominantly Black society gave me a very strong sense of self and who I am as a person,” she said.

After moving to Canada, Adderley-Melbourne grew up in Muskoka, where she and her two siblings were the only people of colour in their school. And, to the best of her knowledge, they were also the only Black family in the town for a number of years, she said.

Her sister had instances in the school playground where other children told her that she couldn’t play with them because she was brown, she said.

“What matters to me most is how you treat people, whether you’re in a business setting, a personal setting or (meeting) a stranger on the street. I think the world needs a touch more humanity, and a touch more caring,” she reflected. 

Quoting a line from the poet Maya Angelou that she felt resonated with her, she said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”