Action Plan Title: House of Empathy: A social enterprise that works with ethnic minority youths to broaden career aspirations and alleviate poverty

Ronnie C.

Hometown/Country: Hong Kong

Program/Year: Leadership Institute Online, 2022

 

What has motivated you to continue to work on your Action Plan?

I always find that by helping others, you are truly helping yourself. My students are what motivates me to continue. Seeing each smile, each small form of gratitude and growth makes me feel like I was able to leave a bit of legacy behind for the next generation. That constant reinforcement that I can make an impact on my students, or in other words, my friends, is what fuels me to continue my Action Plan.

What knowledge or skills that you learned during your BELL/Leadership Institute course have you applied to your work on this project? 

Although I had the drive to make an impact on the ethnic minority impoverished youth community before the Leadership Institute, my teachers and mentors have given me even more motivation to do so. They’ve not only taught me, but showed me through their careers the power of social entrepreneurship and the importance of helping others, and that drive and kindness in helping others is something that they have engraved into me.

How did you get interested in this issue? Why does this issue matter to you and should it matter to others?

Growing up, I have been a huge fan of soccer. I played in a local team here in Hong Kong, in which I met some of my closest friends, many of whom were ethnic minorities from main ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong, including Pakistan, Nepal, and India. As we got older, we shared visions of our futures. As I shared my aspirations to become a social entrepreneur who can leave a legacy for the next generations, they shared their realistic visions of being low wage workers, such as waiters, building security, construction workers and more. These three of my ethnic minority friends unfortunately grew up in impoverished families, parents who work really hard at the minimum wage to provide, but unfortunately, the poverty, the inequality, and lack of quality education limits their potential, passing that limit onto their children too. My goal originally was to try and help expand three of my friends' life career visions, and help them eradicate their poverty through finding a passionate career, but this goal soon turned into my dream, to not only help them, but help the impoverished ethnic minority youth community, and expand all career visions