I HAVE just come back from Washington DC with my colleague Alison Honour and former Health and Life Sciences student Ben Wilkins.

We have been to the Ashoka Exchange, the largest global gathering for universities supporting social enterprise.

Our invitation arose from students like Ben who take part in our Oxford Brookes Social Entrepreneur Awards (OBSEA) programme.

Oxford Mail:

Jeff Willmore.

Supported by UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, and working with Student Hubs, we offer our students, recent graduates and staff the skills, support, guidance and funding they need to turn their ideas into business ventures whose primary aims are addressing social or environmental issues.

As well as being passionate, social entrepreneurs need to be creative, ambitious and resilient in tackling major issues facing society.

These are all qualities which describe Ben and it is wonderful that his dedication was last night recognised by an Oxfordshire High Sheriff’s Award.

Before embarking on his social entrepreneur ventures, Ben was and has continued to be involved in many community-focused projects, his first being a hugely popular session on the Brookes climbing wall for pupils from a local school.

Ben headed up an enthusiastic team of students who pitched to receive funding from the Student Community Fund; an initiative funded by Oxford Brookes alumni to provide financial backing for current student projects.

The climbing wall sessions helped local children in some unexpected ways including one boy who had a condition affecting his hands and who found that his grip and his handwriting improved as a result.

Ben is not just a proactive student with an enquiring mind; over the past three years, he’s also become an accomplished social entrepreneur who combined his studies with setting up at least three different social enterprises.

His qualities are recognised wherever he goes, not least by UnLtd, for whom Ben is now an ambassador.

OBSEA first received funding from UnLtd and the university in 2012 and Ben has been involved in the awards programme since day one.

His first pitch was for a Try It Award of a couple of hundred pounds to create an online platform selling mini gardening kits and teaching students how to grow vegetables.

He moved on to a Do It Award of several thousand pounds to convert retired buses into low cost, ecofriendly holiday homes.

Now, Ben’s latest venture collaborates with Hill End Outdoor Educational Centre at Farmoor, near Oxford, which aims to use profits from residential weekends to help develop gifted and talented children from low and middle income families.

But there’s another reason Ben was nominated for this award.

Recently, Ben had been in touch with a new international student at Brookes, offering her help with her idea for an OBSEA project.

She didn’t know many people, had no family in Oxford and had been in contact one afternoon to arrange to meet up.

Later, in the middle of the night there was a phone call from the police; the girl had been involved in a car accident and was unconscious, so they’d called the last number on her phone. In the early hours of the morning Ben sat at the bedside of this girl he had never met, to guarantee her a friendly face when she eventually regained consciousness.

Being passionate about caring for our fellow man is where Ben and students like him will achieve their ultimate successes in life. Generosity of spirit is not something that our OBSEA or any other programme can teach – only encourage, nurture and acknowledge.

So last night I was pleased to attend a reception where Ben’s contribution to community wellbeing was recognised in receiving a well-deserved award from the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire.