More help on way for Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities to beat their fear of Cantonese

An organisation that is already helping over 100 children from ethnic minority backgrounds beat their fear of Cantonese is looking to expand to serve the rising number of people struggling to grasp the language of the city they were born in.

The Integrated Brilliant Education Trust hopes to open a second centre in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong’s poorest district, before the end of the year.

“We want to get the fear factor – ‘I don’t know Cantonese’ or ‘I can’t learn Cantonese’ – out of their system. Our entire Trust is to make Cantonese easier for these kids to understand,” said Manoj Dhar, CEO and co-founder of the trust.

Sham Shui Po is home to a large portion of ethnic minorities and mainland Chinese migrants. From 2011 to 2016, official data showed that the number of ethnic minorities in the area increased 32.7 per cent, from 18,087 to 24,008 people. Most of them are from Pakistan, Nepal and India.

The trust, a non-governmental organisation, is currently based in Jordan, another neighbourhood densely populated by minorities, particularly Nepalese.