HR Features
A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. – Nelson Mandela
MY Concept members bring their dream to life
Tam was able to draw parallels between Thandi Wines and the Knowledge Volunteers programme, which are both designed to help members of the community develop and sustain their own profitable business. She added, “In Hong Kong many people have the mindset that we must make money and work towards obtaining material things, but we should not ignore those groups of people in our community who do not have the means to earn a living. By helping such people we not only learn more about the community of our home city, we also play an important part in helping to create a better life for them.”
Investing in tomorrow
Kliptown treats Talents to a tradition gum-boot dance The farm, which is co-owned by 250 farm-worker families who hold 55% shares in the company, is the biggest black-owned wine exporting company in South Africa and was the first wine brand in the world to receive Fairtrade accreditation in 2003. The farm prides itself on producing quality wines for devoted wine lovers in 20 countries across the globe, thus giving its people a ‘hand up’ to a better future, rather than a ‘hand out’ from a charity point of view. Vernon Henn, General Manager, Thandi Wines explained, “Although we are able to empower people through the wine sales, Thandi is firstly about quality. We want consumers to repeatedly purchase our product. My aim is to make Thandi one of the biggest, strongest empowerment brands in the wine industry.” Empowering generations is also at the heart of HKBN’s CSR programme, Knowledge
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Volunteers for Community. HKBN is the first company in Hong Kong that has its own knowledge volunteer team, whereby 22 top executives and middle management make use of their own expertise in business management to support the sustainable development of six social enterprises and related projects. One of the enterprises, the Neighbor Plus Workshop, offers employment to unemployed skilled female garment workers to create and promote product lines to corporate and online customers. Shan Tam, Manager-Audit & Co-Owner, HKBN, who is one of the knowledge volunteers involved in the project explained, “The women we work with have a strong community mission but they lack the know-how to make money from it and that is where we can help. We work with the women to make their products more marketable and teach them how to present effectively to customers in order to generate sales.”
According to the Talents, the trip to South Africa was remarkably successful as a CSR exercise. Many reported that the experience not only opened their eyes to the harsh reality of life for many in South Africa, it also increased their understanding of the benefits of long-term, sustainable initiatives—a concept that underlies HKBN’s own CSR strategy. Ivy Lau, Director—Talent Engagement & Co-Owner, HKBN explained, “While devoting one day here and there can have a positive effect on the local community, for CSR to make a real impact and bring about long-term benefits, it must be sustainable. As a company, we wanted to take an approach that would have a greater impact on society and people to be self-sustaining. That is why we formed the Knowledge Volunteer team to help the social enterprises develop their own business model in order to improve their profits and help people in need.” It certainly seems there are striking parallels between the social enterprises in Hong Kong and South Africa in which individuals work collaboratively to keep the hopes of today alive, while creating a better life tomorrow.