What happens if you bring together a group of ethnically diverse entrepreneurs, who come from different backgrounds and have never met each other before?
From our first in-person workshop under the Mentorship Program for Ethnically Diverse Entrepreneurs, this is what we saw: meaningful interactions, heartfelt encouragements, and the beginning of a sense of camaraderie that will hopefully deepen between our mentees, mentors, and coaches during the four-month journey ahead and beyond.
While the focus of the workshop on 13 September 2022 was on goal-setting, the event also served as an occasion for our mentees, mentors, and certified professional coaches from the ICF Hong Kong Charter Chapter to meet each other.
Also present were the Impact Lab interns from the Community Business Support team, attending the emotions board where mentees and mentors used stickers to indicate how they were feeling that day.
The emotions board may seem to be just a small exercise, but it can help increase our awareness of our own emotional state, and create a safe space for our mentees and mentors to initiate dialogues on mental wellbeing.
Meet Our Community of Ethnically Diverse Mentees
We asked our mentees to take turns to tell us about themselves, their organizations (or initiatives), why they signed up for this Mentorship Program, and a fun fact about themselves.
Representing the 10 mentee organizations (or initiatives) are 16 individuals identifying themselves as Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Chinese, and Filipinos. Amongst the six established organizations, the type of legal status ranges from sole proprietorship, society, non-profit organization to private company limited by shares. Out of the 10 mentee initiatives, seven have a clearly-defined social mission.
- Shilpa Pednekar, Founder of Shilpa’s Masala Mill
- Luisa Tan Castro and Adnan Muhammed, Co-founders of The Institute of Leadership and Management
- Jerwine Bonafe – Que, Co-founder and Managing Director; Aaron Que, Co-founder and Business Director; Sophiya Thapa, The Blomstre
- Turzo Bose, Lamia Sreya Rahman, Co-founders of Seekr
- Aiman Nadeem, Vice President; Mahmood Khalil, Executive Committee Member of Project Ethnic Minority Empowerment (PEME)
- Mahejabeen Hossain Nidhi, Founder of Sisyphii Limited
- Mark Cheung, Co-founder and Executive Director of Network of Environmental Student Societies (NESS)
- Bijita Thapa and Saiksha Gurung, Co-founders of Sisnu Sisters
- Manju Viswam, aspiring entrepreneur
- Habiba Aslam, aspiring entrepreneur
Setting SMART Goals for the Next Four Months
For our mentees of aspiring and budding entrepreneurs, the four-month Mentorship Program will be an exciting journey as they learn from subject matter experts how to build capacity and resilience for themselves, their initiatives, and their communities.
Here, setting SMART goals will help these busy entrepreneurs, students, and parents stay grounded and committed to their vision and mission.
At the workshop, our mentees were paired with their assigned mentors to think through their vision and mission for the program and their organizations. With the help of the informative session delivered by Vivian Seo, Community Business Support Project Manager at FSI, our mentees and mentors worked together to break down the vision and mission statements into Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based objectives, and identified ways to gauage and track key results in order to reach their objectives.
We hope our mentees now have a clear vision for their organizations and the Mentorship Program, and that they have been able to schedule sessions with their mentors and coaches. Stay tuned to this space for the highlights of the next workshop on the Creative Process of Ideation!
*Interested in supporting our work on helping ethnically diverse entrepreneurs start and scale their business? Donate to us or get in touch with us on cbs@shared-impact.com!
