The disabled Hong Kong workers who are paid just HK$26.50 a day
More like a care service than a step towards employment, sheltered workshops mean a lifetime of inadequate pay for people with disabilities. Can social enterprises offer a better solution?
It's a dilemma that families grapple with when their children have serious disabilities: what to do after they grow up and are too old for school? Thankfully for Kwok Wai-chun, her son Vincent Ho Wing-sun has managed to get a job at iBakery, a social enterprise run by the charity Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. "He says he's like his father and needs to work," she says with a chuckle.
Although 26-year Ho has Down's syndrome, he has been learning new skills at iBakery. His latest assignment is to make matcha tea cakes, a new item, and he watches attentively as production manager Leung Shiu-fai fills a piping bag with batter and injects even amounts into a few loaf tins. Ho then continues the task, filling rows of tins.
The enterprise sells its cakes and pastries to companies as corporate gifts, and at a pop-up stand in the Hopewell Centre, its shop in Kennedy Town and its cafe at Tamar, which also employs people with disabilities. The matcha pound cakes are introduced not just to boost sales but also raise awareness about workers like Ho.
More than half of iBakery's 60 employees are people with various kinds of disabilities, mental and physical. Because of that, they focus on pastries that are easy to make and involve simple decorations. Nevertheless, the items sell quite well and, coupled with concessionary rents at some outlets, the venture has stayed in the black.
Thanks to his cheery smile, Ho has become the "face" of iBakery, his photo appearing on the bakery's promotional material. He earns about HK$6,000 a month as a full-time employee (based on minimum wage of HK$32.50 per an hour), and receives standard benefits such medical care and annual leave.
Florence Chan of iBakery regularly receives inquiries from families about whether there might be a job for their child.
The most important criteria are that the candidate must be willing to learn and be fit enough to be able to stay on their feet eight hours, says Chan, who is also assistant superintendent at Tung Wah's rehabilitation centre in Aberdeen. After clearing that hurdle, they are given up to three weeks' of training, not only to see if they are suitable for the job but also whether they like it.