Act!on For A Cause Begins!

On 23 November 2019, UBS hosted the Act!on For A Cause (AFAC) Kickoff Ceremony, where mentors and team members were introduced to each other for the first time. The event focused on fostering collaboration between the mentors and mentees to work together, planning for ways to bring students’ community project ideas to life!

Our Saturday morning started with Ms. Kumiko Hori, APAC Head of Community Affairs at UBS, encouraging students to absorb all they can from this fantastic experience of being an entrepreneur. Mr. Mark Cheng, European Managing Director of Ashoka, shared with the audience the startup model of sprints to “try first, start small, reflect about what can be better and do it again in a better way”.

“Change the way you see failure. On the implementation phase of your idea, failure is an essential part of the learning process.”

To prepare the teams for what to expect in the coming months, we invited Isabel and Jaz on the stage from the project “Save the Earth” with their mentor of three years Mrs. Diana Footitt. Together, they shared their experience and insights throughout the project. All three of them admitted that the first meeting was the worst – Diana wasn’t sure how to deal with secondary students and the girls were extremely nervous and quite uncertain as to what to say. After some meetings, trust was built from both parties and they learned how to work together!

One important tip from Diana to other mentors was to understand the students’ schedules as they have some pretty busy weeks during the year due to exams and school tasks. She says: “Always keep the communication open, sharing your work appointments and commitments and align with the students the dates for the meetings in advance”.

We are positive that this year will be amazing! Such a great team of mentors and students who are passionate about making a positive impact in Hong Kong! Keep up the fun and commitment. See you all at our next event on 15 February 2020!