Hong Kong NGO leadership programme nurtures social service network for the future

Businesswoman Lena Wong is all about helping mothers continue their careers after giving birth, while James Chong Kwok-tung wants children to read more books.

The two Hongkongers were among 24 participants in this year’s NGO leadership programme organised by Chinese University’s social work department and Swiss investment bank UBS.

The nine-month programme, which kicked off this month, is sponsored by UBS and Operation Santa Claus, and the winner becomes a beneficiary of the charity. Winners in the past have been granted more than HK$800,000 (US$102,000) to invest in their service. The amount of funding for this year’s winner has yet to be decided.

Wong said she left the high-pressure finance industry after the birth of her daughter to spend more time at home.

“It is zero either way: you’re totally out of the game, or you’re 24/7 on the job,” Wong said of her career in finance.

It was a painting by her daughter, of Wong giving a speech on stage, that inspired her to continue working. She soon started Hong Kong Momtrepreneurs, an NGO that provides consulting services for mothers who want to maintain their careers.

“It is a great loss to Hong Kong because many of these women are very competent,” Wong said of women forced to stop working after childbirth.

Chong spent two decades in the publishing industry. Last year, he founded a programme called Rolling Books and has been visiting schools and community centres to promote reading in the age of cellphones and tablets.

“We often talk about reading in academic terms, but it can also lead children down the path of lifelong learning,” he said.

Chong said he believed reading could give children from low-income families better upward mobility – an idea he picked up working for the charity Oxfam.

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The two participants are not eligible for the prize because their social services were registered as charities. Even so, they said they were hoping to meet other donors during the leadership programme.

Mooly Wong Mei-ching, a professor in the social work department, said the programme does more than nurture good leaders.

Wong said it also provides participants with a vast and lasting network that will help with the transfer of knowledge and problem solving in the future. She said the university would help participants in their research.

“Ideas need to be challenged, tested and debated. And only after that will we know if a project is worth putting vast amounts of resources into,” Wong said.

Stewart, the bank’s chief communication officer in the Asia-Pacific, said he wanted to raise the rate of workers volunteering from 36 per cent to 40 per cent within the year, that means getting 25,000 people involved.

He admitted that some people were not so keen on adding volunteer work to their already busy schedules.

“There will always be people who prefer to be generous with their chequebooks, than with their time, we have to respect that,” Stewart said.

The NGO leadership programme had been running since 2015. Kenneth Choi Man-kin, the general manager of social enterprise Gingko House, took home the grand prize last year.

Operation Santa Claus, jointly organised by the South China Morning Post and RTHK since 1988, is one of the largest charitable donation drives in Hong Kong.