The Women’s Foundation’s stated mission is to empower women in Hong Kong to achieve greater economic self-reliance.  From our research and many other research partners, we know that poverty and income inequality are critical issues for Hong Kong.   Women are particularly vulnerable because of their lower levels of participation in the labour market, differentials in income and limited access to social security.  Having identified women’s economic self-reliance as an urgent issue for Hong Kong, TWF has launched a bold new programme for marginalised women in Hong Kong building on our past experience of delivering financial literacy training.  The key objectives of the Programme are to empower marginalised women in poverty to improve their level of financial literacy and ultimately achieve greater economic self-reliance and a better quality of life for themselves and their families; and to assist marginalised women with potential in capacity building.   The marginalised communities we hope to help through the programme include domestic violence victims, CSSA recipients, new arrivals from the Mainland, single mothers, women with disabilities, ethnic minorities, migrant women and sex workers.

Programme Design

TWF collaborates with our training partner to provide tailor-made course materials for each target marginalised community.  The Programme consists of two parts – Ambassador Training and Community Training. In order to ensure the programme is sustainable and with the aim of assisting marginalised women with high potential in capacity building, we partner with grassroots NGOs representing relevant communities who help shortlist and select at least five high potential women from each community to receive a higher level of training in a “Financial Literacy Ambassador Training” initiative.  After receiving the training, those 40 Ambassadors (5 Ambassadors x 8 communities) will have the ability to deliver the course (i.e. Community Training) to their peers, with the guidance and support of TWF and our training partner.  The Community Training will be run twice with at least for a minimum of 24 participants in total for each community.  No less than 192 marginalised women (24 x 8 communities) will benefit from the programme. 

The Programme has also built in one year follow-up services for participants and programme impact evaluation to measure its effectiveness.

Programme Content

The workshop curriculum covers not only the financial aspects, which include fundamental essentials of personal finance, setting financial targets and budgetting, wants vs needs, investment traps, but also comprises of training of soft skills which include self-management, negotiation and parenting skills, and training strategies and teaching techniques which prepare the Ambassadors for the forthcoming community training. To suit the specified needs and profiles of different communities, programme content will be adjusted and tailor-made for each community.

Programme Progress

The Programme was launched in September 2011 and is progressing well.  First round of Ambassador training and community training have taken place.  The participants actively took part in the workshops and collectively developed very interactive platform of learning and sharing.  There are a few more rounds of training to come.  Workshops are expected to be completed in March 2013, with follow up sessions lasting for another year thereafter. 

Corporate Partner

Barclays Capital is the lead sponsor and strategic partner of the programme.  Barclays Capital staff member has served on the Steering Committee which helps with content development, selection of the marginalised segments to be served by the programme, selection of NGO partners and selection of the trainers. They are also planning to provide support to the course including information on accessing and understanding banking services.

Training Partner

TWF has recruited Christian Action as the Master Trainer via a tendering exercise.  Their major responsibilities include developing course content, conducting training workshops for the Financial Literacy Ambassadors and providing on-site training support to the Ambassadors when they deliver the course to their communities.

The Master Trainer will provide tailor-made course materials for each target marginalised community.

Research Partner

The Family and Group Practice Research Centre of Chinese University of Hong Kong has been appointed as the Research Consultant for the Evaluation Study for the programme.  They shall assess the effectiveness of the Programme in terms of improving the participants’ level of financial literacy and gaining confidence and acquiring knowledge and skills to pursue greater economic self reliance.

Partner Grassroots NGOs

In order to ensure the programme is sustainable and with the aim of assisting marginalised women with high potential in capacity building, TWF partner with grassroots NGOs representing the eight specific target marginalised women communities.  Partner NGOs shall be granted subsidy for performing duties including recruiting Ambassadors and participants for training, and providing veneus and administrative support in the course of training.

Confirmed partner grassroots NGOs are the New Women Arrivals League, Tin Shui Wai Women Association Limited, Association of Women with Disabilities Hong Kong and the PathFinders.

Government Support

TWF has received matching grant from the"Partnership Fund for the Disadvantaged" granted by the Social Welfare Department of HKSAR Government.

We are very honoured to have a group of professionals to be in our Steering Committee to guide the development and implementation of the Programme.  Committee memebrs are:

Rachel Cartland 
Former Director of Social Welfare (Social Security) 
Upon graduating from Oxford University in 1972, Rachel joined the Hong Kong Government and subsequently served in a variety of senior posts. She possesses extensive experience in the Government Secretariat in areas including broadcasting, arts and culture policy.  In 1995, Rachel was appointed Assistant Director of Social Welfare (Social Security) where she was responsible for managing 2000 staff and an annual budget of HK$25 billion.  The new programmes that she developed included 'Support for Self-Reliance', Hong Kong's first welfare-to-work initiative and the Computerised Social Security System.  Rachel also served in the Education and Manpower Bureau of the HK Government from 2001-2.  She left the HK Government in 2006 to set up Cartland Consulting, which specialises in public sector consulting.  She joined the TWF Board of Governors in March 2011.

Shou Sen Cheam 
Director, COO Team (Asia Pacific), Investment Banking Division
Shou Sen Cheam is a Director with the Investment Banking Division's COO team in Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong.  She primarily works closely with the Greater China Investment Banking Division on infrastructure and platform building matters.  Shou Sen joined Barclays Capital in 2002 and has worked in the Structured Financing Solutions and IBD China team.  Shou Sen has been an active member in the charity and volunteering groups at Barclays Capital and one of the organisers for Project Step, which was a regional organisation effort to raise funds for victims of the Sichuan Earthquake in 2009.  Prior to joining Barclays Capital, Shou Sen worked in the Debt Capital Markets departments at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch.  She graduated with a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA from The John Anderson School at UCLA.

Dr. Fernando Cheung Chiu-Hung 
Lecturer, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Dr. Fernando Cheung Chiu-Hung first graduated from the Social Work Department of the Baptist College in 1980, then went to the U.S. for further study and later worked as the Director of a non-profit community based organisation in California, where he resided for 15 years.  He obtained his doctoral degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1990.  After he moved back to Hong Kong in 1996, he became a lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the vice-convener of Civil Human Rights Front in 2002.  He joined the functional constituency of social welfare of Legislative Council in June, 2004.  Dr Cheung puts forward the intensity of social inequality in the context of Hong Kong and always speaks for socially marginalised groups including new immigrants, unemployed, single parents, mentally handicapped and the elderly with a view to striving for a better social position they deserved.  He is also interested in the development of the civil society in Hong Kong.