At Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), we work with our partners in the private and public sectors to advance diversity, inclusion, and equity in our society. One of the ways we do this is by working with ethnically diverse youths to support multicultural grassroots businesses in Hong Kong.
Every summer, FSI places five to 10 impact-driven youth (aged 15-24) in an internship to equip them with transferable skills and entrepreneurial experiences. Throughout the internship, the youth interns are entrusted with real-life small business projects, where they would provide much-needed support and solutions to resolve various business challenges facing the grassroots entrepreneurs supported by our GuideFong initiative.
In the summer of 2024, we took this impactful internship a step further by engaging Goldman Sachs Comunity TeamWorks volunteers in an Impact Jam on 13 July. The 17 volunteers were assigned a mission: to contribute their knowledge and expertise to enable the nine youth interns to provide better support for under-resourced entrepreneurs.
Be Your Neighbourhood’s Guide
We kick-started the Impact Jam with an introduction to GuideFong, Hong Kong’s first-ever online directory for ethnically diverse businesses, built by FSI. In showcasing the grassroots businesses founded and owned by ethnically diverse individuals whose long-standing presence in Hong Kong helped shape the vibrant cultural tapestry of the city, GuideFong aims to increase the visibility and reach of these businesses while facilitating their interaction with the local Chinese-speaking audience.
Every month, our Community Business Support team would conduct regular community outreach sessions to engage with grassroots ethnically diverse businesses to gauge their business needs and challenges, as well as their interest in being listed on GuideFong and to receive bespoke direct business support from us. We also support entrepreneurs who are connected to us through the activities we organize for our community of ethnically diverse entrepreneurs.
At the Impact Jam session, Goldman Sachs Community TeamWorks volunteers and youth interns were put into six groups, each assigned to research the three districts of Yuen Long, Central and Western, or Kwai Tsing, and subsequently to create a neighbourhood guide for the district.
Each group of volunteers and youth interns worked together to search for fun facts about the district’s multicultural background and history, and identified small businesses owned by ethnically diverse entrepreneurs to be listed on GuideFong.
When presenting their findings, the leaders of each group shared fun facts such as Yuen Long being home to 10% of Hong Kong’s population and boasting a rich biodiversity in its wetlands; the Central and Western District probably being the most culturally diverse, juxtaposing the old and the new; and Kwai Tsing also widely known as the “Mini Pakistan Village”, with Pakistanis accounting for 37.9% of the ethnically diverse population in the district.
Empowering Youth to Empower Under-resourced Entrepreneurs
In the second session of the Impact Jam, Goldman Sachs volunteers were paired with our youth interns to help them enhance their small business projects. Leveraging their respective skills and expertise, the volunteers spent time to understand the specific business bottlenecks the youth interns were trying to resolve, before offering practical advice and hands-on assistance in areas like market research, business modeling, digital marketing, and design.
For example, Suhana Rai, a year-three student reading English Studies and Digital Communication at the Education University of Hong Kong, received advice from a volunteer to add a travel itinerary to the Yuen Long neighborhood guide that she is curating for her internship at FSI.
Abeer Sayed, a year-one student majoring in Psychology at HKU Space, received advice from a volunteer to avoid segregating local and ethnically diverse businesses in her Yau Tsim Mong neighborhood guide.
For Mahekpreet Kaur, a year-two student reading Business Management at the City University of Hong Kong, the volunteer suggested that she discuss the role the government can play in supporting ethnically diverse businesses in the literature review she is conducting on the entrepreneurship and employment experience of South Asians in Hong Kong.
Become a GuideFong Volunteer
The Impact Jam was another successful cross-sector collaboration facilitated by FSI, with every participant agreeing that they gained useful insights and information about Hong Kong’s ethnically diverse community and the youth community. From the participants, we also received a nine out of 10 rating confirming that they would recommend the Impact Jam workshop to their peers of skills-based volunteers.
The Impact Jam session was not just socially impactful but enjoyable as it was “fun”, according to many participants. Said Rose Wong, Global Banking & Markets: “Really enjoyed the session. The three hours passed faster than what I would have expected.”
The session also highlighted one of the things FSI excels in: bringing people together to enhance the diversity and inclusion in Hong Kong. Said Ying Long, Controllers: “It was very cool to learn about the ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong as well as to interact with local high school students that I usually would not have a chance to meet.”
“The session provided me with a lot of new knowledge and insights, which would really help me in my project,” said a youth intern.
But the learning was mutual, as Jane Wang, Global Banking & Markets, readily agreed: “Great interaction with the interns today and learned many things from them too.”
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Impact Jam workshop to help our youth interns gain the knowledge and insights to more effectively support grassroots ethnically diverse entrepreneurs and the ethnically diverse community in Hong Kong. Our heartfelt gratitude to our youth interns for committing to their various impactful work to enhance the diversity, inclusion, and equity in Hong Kong. Last but not least, huge thanks to SpiceBox Organics for their catering service.
Get Involved
If you would like to volunteer your expertise, knowledge, and time for GuideFong, email us at info@guidefong.org! For other impactful volunteering opportunities to support ethnically diverse entrepreneurs and youth in Hong Kong, drop us a message at cbs@shared-impact.com.
