The world has opened up for Tam Fung-chin, 47, since she went to work a year ago at a shop run by the Hong Kong Women Workers' Association.
'The past year has been an eye-opening experience,' she says. 'I can't read, but I have seen and learned a lot. I used to be afraid of talking to strangers. Although making speeches still worries me, I am no longer afraid of talking to strangers.'
Tam is one of five workers in the association's social enterprise shop at the Hong Kong College of Technology, in Ma On Shan. She cooks, serves meals and rings up sales to students who come in for food and snacks. The shop was set up with the support of last year's Operation Santa Claus, co-organised by the South China Morning Post and RTHK.
It is the association's second mini-store set up to provide working opportunities and management experience for middle-aged, unskilled women who encounter age and sex discrimination in the job market. It has run a kiosk at Chinese University for 10 years, selling snacks and batteries.
The association works with many women in Hong Kong, providing training and coaching to help them find work and earn a living. Canteen workers are trained to cook, serve and ring up sales. Employees are asked for ideas to diversify the menu, improve management and food quality, and organise activities to bring in more business. Wu Mei-lin, the association's co-ordinator, said: 'Middle-aged women from low-income backgrounds have many skills, but their skills are not what the market wants, so they are not valued. They can only take up the lowest-income jobs, and are easily discriminated against because of their age and gender. Therefore, their self-esteem is low.'
On top of jobs and income, the shop gives women business management skills, Wu says. 'We don't intervene in how they run the store; we encourage them to make decisions and resolve disagreements. They are strongly attached to the store and make plenty of suggestions about how to attract more business.'