Bright sparks on mission to educate Hong Kong’s needy children
Arnold Chan’s charity Teach4HK places top university graduates at schools in poorer areas for a year – but finding recruits isn’t always easy
Armed with a business degree and working for an investment bank, the future couldn’t have been brighter for Arnold Chan Kwan-yeung. So it’s hard to imagine the 28-year-old is still trying to make ends meet.
But Chan is not scrambling to make a living, he is maintaining his NGO Teach4HK, a local charity that places top university graduates as teachers in underprivileged schools for a full school year.
The founder and CEO – who comes from a middle class family and is a former alumnus of the elite boys’ school La Salle College – understands the value of opportunity.
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“I still remember being in Form Three and visiting students in subdivided flats. I still have a very clear memory of seeing those kids sitting on their beds, trying to do their homework,” he says.
“It made me reflect on the education and opportunities I was receiving back then, was it equal for all?”
After three years with investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, Chan decided to part company, taking up a volunteer position at Teach for China, a programme similar to Teach For America, which trains high-achieving graduates and sends them into schools in poor areas for two years.