Family tragedy turned journalist into social entrepreneur
Diamond Cab service offers mobility and freedom to wheelchair users
As a reporter and producer in a previous life, Doris Leung Shuk-yi enjoyed producing community television about issues affecting Hongkongers.
With a confident and vivacious personality, Leung enthusiastically recalls the community news she used to do for “Eye on Community” - an evening news programme which she presented for Cable TV.
“We would follow some agenda at the District Council or maybe look at some traffic danger problem. Then each day we had a different topic, ‘’ Leung says.
"So Mondays would be entrepreneurial stories. Tuesdays were ‘reasonable complaints’ - so social topics and issues within the community; Wednesdays was health news - so interviews with doctors and patients; Thursdays were people profiles - maybe a lawyer; and Fridays were my favourite - talking about lifestyle, so I would go hiking or mountain climbing, or abseiling. I’d even get to go travelling and do an adventure race outside Hong Kong.”
Leung worked for Cable TV for 16 years, following a degree in languages and communications at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. But it was in 2006 that an event would change her life from journalist to social entrepreneur.
“In September 2006 my mother suddenly fell down in the kitchen,” she says. Later medical tests showed her mother had a brain tumour, which affected her speech and mobility on her right side.
Leung was shocked when a nurse took her aside at the hospital and said she should prepare for her mother being in a wheelchair. “This was heartbreaking news,” she says.