FSI: Empowering Hong Kong Youth to Empower Under-resourced Entrepreneurs

Hong Kong’s ethnically diverse (“ED”) entrepreneurs and grassroots businesses contribute to the city’s vibrancy and cultural richness. However, they face unique challenges in growing and sustaining their ventures. Recognizing this, Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI) has long been offering bespoke, in-depth support to ED entrepreneurs running small and independent businesses, selling a diverse range of products and services across Hong Kong. To date, we have assisted over 60 businesses in their startup, incorporation, and growth. Our goal is to help them scale their businesses while fostering community leadership and social inclusion.

When it comes to our work in empowering disadvantaged communities, we don’t do it alone. 

Since 2014, FSI has been dedicated to empowering and equipping youth with transferable skills for career development and enhanced employability through internship placement in our award-winning experiential learning programs, exposing youth to social impact, and engaging youth in providing consultation and entrepreneurial support.  

As is characteristic of all FSI programs, the broad cross-sector collaboration we drive through our Community Business Support (CBS) Program leads to fruitful results that benefit everyone involved. Through our Community Business Internship Program, for example, we enable disadvantaged youth to enhance their soft skills, business acumen, and employability by giving them the opportunity to conduct business consultations and deliver suitable solutions to our network of under-resourced entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. The entrepreneurs, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the direct business support services, were given the advice and means to grow their businesses, whether by having their digital presence enhanced or service menus translated into multiple languages to reach a broader client base.

Community Business Internship (CBI) Program

In 2023, FSI’s CBS team introduced the Community Business Internship (CBI) Program aimed at empowering ED youth aged 16-24 years to become future leaders and business consultants. This initiative offers participants hands-on training in entrepreneurship and career development while enabling them to provide valuable business consultations to grassroots and socially impactful businesses in Hong Kong.

Building on the success of the past two cohorts, this year’s summer interns continued to engage directly with under-resourced entrepreneurs, applying their skills in digital marketing, such as optimizing Google profiles and boosting social media presence. Through these projects, the youth interns not only gained essential business acumen and transferable soft skills but also created meaningful solutions to help the businesses thrive.

Since 2023, we have continued to witness significant impact resulting from the CBI Program: the youth interns have successfully assisted local businesses in overcoming challenges and expanding their reach, while at the same time, acquiring new skills and honing in on their existing skills. In addition to gaining more clarity for their career planning, the youth interns were also gratified by the experience of leveraging their skills and knowledge to support their community. 

Said Suhani Gurung, a Spring 2024 CBI intern who helped Mohamed Rizwan develop growth strategies for his business, Twist Visuals: “It has been a transformative experience working with FSI. Not only has it enriched my experience, but it also allowed me to develop a diverse set of skills and knowledge that will be instrumental in my future career. Most importantly, this internship has shaped my professional aspirations and ignited a deep passion within me to continue supporting small business owners, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, to foster a more inclusive and supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hong Kong.” 

The youth engaged in projects supervised by FSI team members, where they provided customized and sustainable business solutions focusing on digital marketing (e.g., Google profiles, website SEO, social media) and operational productivity. The objective of the program is to educate ED youth about entrepreneurship and also help them gain business acumen and transferable soft skills for their long-term career development. 

Program Objectives 

• Educate youths about entrepreneurship and develop their business acumen and transferable hard and soft skills for long-term career growth.

• Help ED-led grassroots businesses overcome challenges and expand their reach to attract customers from all communities in Hong Kong, promoting social inclusion and harmony.

• Outreach to ED-led grassroots businesses in the Kwai Chung and Yau Tsim Mong districts, helping them get listed on the GuideFong directory and learn about our services and opportunities

• Create neighborhood guides to showcase and highlight the unique businesses in different districts, enhancing their visibility and community engagement.

Impact Summary

Through the 2024 summer round of Community Business Internship Program, 40 more grassroots businesses were listed in our GuideFong directory, five neighborhood guides were published, and two grassroots businesses, including Zaitun and The Habibi Kitchen, were supported with two business consultation projects, resulting in tangible deliverables such as various designs for social media posts, logos, menus, and price lists. Under the supervision of the CBS team, the youth interns provided 20 hours of direct engagement and consultations to the businesses through five outreach visits, and dedicated a total of 25 hours of direct business support from July to August 2024. 

The program received positive evaluations from the interns, stakeholders, entrepreneurs, and business owners we support. 

ED Business Owners:

• 90% expressed satisfaction with the engagement and output delivered by FSI and the interns.

• Listed over 40 grassroots businesses on GuideFong’s business directory from Yau Tsim Mong and Kwai Chung District.

Youth Interns:

• 83% of the interns rated their internship experience as highly beneficial for gaining awareness and knowledge about the challenges faced by grassroots businesses.

• 81% of the interns found the internship experience to be highly relevant to their career development.

• 78% of the interns believed that their work had a significant impact on the community and social inclusion of ED businesses in Hong Kong.

Helping Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Build Capacity

CBS also runs an annual Mentorship Program for Ethnically Diverse Entrepreneurs to help aspiring and budding entrepreneurs and business owners build capacity through mentorship, coaching, and practical business workshops. For the mentee and mentor entrepreneurs, their supporters, and other under-resourced entrepreneurs in Hong Kong, we manage a reciprocal community to foster collaboration, knowledge exchange, and mutual support.  To provide ED entrepreneurs with ongoing support, our publicly accessible library of resources, guides, and templates in the Entrepreneur’s Toolkit enable them to navigate everyday business and organizational matters. Additionally, FSI also developed GuideFong, Hong Kong’s first online directory for ED-owned businesses, to increase visibility for over 150 businesses. Since GuideFong’s establishment in 2023, it has garnered 8,000+ views in a year.

Join Us in Building a Stronger Community

Explore our inspiring case stories and neighborhood guides to see how FSI equips Hong Kong youth with transferable skills while giving them the opportunity to contribute to their community. Together, we’re building a stronger, more inclusive business community.

Impact Case Stories

• Supporting Nissar Abbas to Enhance His Business’ Reach to Local Clientele 

• Helping Tess Karl Buah Introduce Hong Kong to Ghanaian Cuisine

• Assisting Mohamed Rizwan to Develop Growth Strategies for Twist Visuals

• Supporting Senchu Chemjong to Launch a Sustainably Sourced Nepalese Tea Business 

Neighborhood Guide

• Exploring the Vibrant SME Scene in Tsim Sha Tsui

• Yau Tsim Mong District, Who Are You?

The CBI Program is a cornerstone of FSI’s mission to empower youth and support ethnically diverse businesses. By building skills and fostering community connections, we are paving the way for a more inclusive and vibrant business environment in Hong Kong.

Get Involved

Here’s how you can help FSI support more grassroots businesses in mutually beneficial ways:

• Join our Community Business Support Internship to equip yourself or your students with business consultation skills and help under-resourced entrepreneurs;

• Sponsor and/or volunteer for our Community Business Support Internship, Impact Jams, Mentorship Program for Ethnically Diverse Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur’s Toolkit etc. to channel private-sector resources towards positive social impact; 

Check out GuideFong to find more grassroots businesses, try them out, leave reviews, and tell others about Hong Kong’s first online directory for ethnically diverse businesses!

The Community Business Internship Program to support ethnically diverse youths in Hong Kong was supported by Linklaters Asia.