The story goes back to a collaboration with WEDO Global, for a photoshoot featuring their latest charitable headband “WeBand” at Tamar Park. After the photoshoot, I had the pleasure to have lunch with their co-founder Bosco Ng, who shared his story for starting WEDO Global to promote multicultural education in Hong Kong. It all started from a summer camp in Canada during his first year in university. The camp was designed to bring people from over 20 countries around the world to share their cultures and create programmes for intercultural education at local schools. Since then, Bosco looked closer into the education scene in Hong Kong and identified the missing link. WEDO Global was founded with the mission to enhance racial harmony in Hong Kong through educating the ethnic minorities, and improving public education about cultures of the ethnic minorities. Initially focused on educational tour experiences, the social enterprise transitioned to product-based operation for brand-building during the pandemic. That day, Bosco invited me to promote “WeBand”, a fabric headband sewed by ethnic minority women in Hong Kong, with pattern designed using wood carved models back in India. I delightfully took the request and had a fun-filled photoshoot. Each headband sold, 10% of the profit will be donated to Pathfinders to support working moms.

Going back to the lunch, I suggested we go to iBakery, as it is a successful social enterprise that hires intellectually challenged staff as waiters and waitresses. Once we took the seat, I saw a middle-aged man in a grey polo shirt that says “Dignity Kitchen”. I thought it must be a secret customer visit from Dignity Kitchen to learn from iBakery! I was right. Bosco and I decided to reach out to the man and introduce our social enterprises. The man, who is actually the founder of Dignity Kitchen Mr Koh, passionately told us about his story and invited us to visit. As Mr Koh would go back to Singapore soon, we arranged the visit the following week.

The last week of April, we had the pleasure to visit Dignity Kitchen, along with colleagues from WEDO Global and V’air. It is an exchange among three social enterprises essentially! The visit started off with Mr Koh giving a presentation about the vision, mission and business model of Dignity Kitchen, struggles and challenges they faced, as well as the impact created and next steps. I was most impressed by their new initiative of AI robot, leverage on the latest technology to serve both customers and the disabled staff. Aligned with the goal of Dignity Kitchen to empower the disadvantaged group, Mr Koh recognises some of them are unable to go out of home, especially during COVID times. This robot allows people to sit at home and interact with customers in the restaurants, taking orders and addressing their questions through real-time control. This demonstrates the spirit required to survive as a social entrepreneur in the highly competitive business environment in Hong Kong – continual creation and innovation.