Improving the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
Speech from Alice Mak, Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, HKSAR
At Ethnic Minority Youth Summit on 14 June 2025
Shalini, Dr. Lam, Bernard, Annie, and all distinguished guests. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is my great pleasure joining you today at the ethnic minority youth summit. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation for The Zubin Foundation for hosting this meaningful event. I think most of you know that Hong Kong is a home to over 600,000 ethic minority individuals. Making up about 8% of our population. Among them a significant number of young people like yourselves brimming with potential and thrills. Yet, studies show that ethnic minority will often face challenges in education and employment, but here is another fact. When given the right support and platforms ethnic minority youth have proven time and time again that they can excel, innovate, and win.
Today, we gather at this ethnic minority youth summit. Not just to acknowledge these challenges but to celebrate the incredible resilience, creativity, diversity that each of you brings to our society. This summit is youth platform, a place to inspire and power and connect as you pursue your educational and career aspirations. In this summit, you will have the opportunity to hear stories of ethnic minority individuals who have overcome barriers and carved out path of success in various fields you will also have the opportunity to attend thematic topics that work with professionals and gain insights into industries that they may have once felt out of reach. Undoubtedly as we all know the government plays a significant emphasis on the development of youth, the Youth Development Blueprint released in late 2022 outlines the mission vision and guiding principles among long term youth development under the theme inspire our views brighten our future has put forward over 160 measures to provide holistic support for all young people in Hong Kong including those from ethnic minority communities covering education, life planning, career development, resilience building, social participation, and much more. Additionally, over the last two years we have introduced around 19 new measures to address the changing needs of young people. We monitored the implementation progress and engaged with the intent of beneficiaries of relevant stakeholders.
To solicit their feedback and conduct reviews as necessary the government is also committed to building a caring and inclusive society to promote community integration. The Home Affairs Department has engaged non-governmental organisations to operate tech support service centres for ethnic minorities across Hong Kong. These centres provide a wide range of services including language classes, counselling, and referral services, and integration activities, etc. Last year, we set up an Ethnic Minority Care Team at each centre to provide dedicated care services for ethnic minority health services. To further address the challenges faced by ethnic minorities due to language barriers, the Home Affairs Department will engage an additional support service centre for ethnic minorities to provide interpretation and translation services for ethnic minorities. This initiative complements the existing CHEER Centre. We aim to launch this new initiative by the end of this year and showing that ethnic minority communities can access essential services easily and effectively.
Improving the lives of Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities by reducing suffering and providing opportunities
Moving forward, we will continue to collaborate with all sectors of the community including The Zubin Foundation to foster the environment in which our young people can realise their full potential and prepare themselves to contribute to us today, our country, and the world. as we begin this summit I encourage you embrace every moment ask questions share your stories and be bold. The world needs your unique perspectives and talents. You are not just the future; you are the present. And, your contributions matter. Let us make this summit a turning point – a moment where you will feel inspired, empowered, and connected to a community that believes in your potential and embrace diversity and I wish this summit a great success and trust that you will find this day both inspiring and fruitful. Let us have an incredible day ahead. Thank you.
End.