HONG KONG BUSINESS ASSOCIATION VIETNAM (“HKBAV”) CHARITY INITIATIVE

One of the HKBAV objectives is to actively give back to the community through its collective membership.  A Charity Fund was set up in 2005 and supervised by a Charity Committee independently, reporting to the Executive Committee.  Over the years, we have raised over 55K USD and donated more than half of that to organizations/initiatives through ad hoc or organized activities with a current reserve of ~26K USD .  With the increasing awareness of Corporate Social Responsibilities and the HKBAV desire to actively give back, the Executive Committee has approved a longer term strategy and commitment to a cause in which HKBAV will work actively to fundraise and support.

HKBAV agrees that our efforts should meet the following criteria to ensure focus.

1) Activities should allow involvement of our members’ and their organizations.
2) We should be accountable for the funds being used responsibly working with organizations where we conduct appropriate due diligence.
3) Causes we contribute towards should be sustainable and have a longer term impact preferable to one time relief.
4) We should allow for promotion of HKBAV whenever appropriate.

HKBAV to take on a longer term initiative under the banner of “Enable Learning   Impart Knowledge”.   A logo, designed by Ms Christina Yu of Ipa Nima, incorporating the HKBAV logo, was developed to bring focus to our efforts.  She has chosen the Chinese word ‘善’ for the concept behind the design as it means kindness/ charitable.  The integration of the book image in the Chinese word brings out our focus of learning and knowledge.

A 3-year commitment – The Library Project (“TLP”)
www.library-project.org

An NGO project to build libraries and reading corners in schools in rural Vietnam to improve children’s literacy. Each project comes with proper librarian training and a 3-year monitoring program.  TLP started in China and branched into Vietnam and Cambodia.  The cost of each library project is small enough for HKBAV to commit without pressure with the flexibility to up our game should our fundraising efforts pay off. The geographical coverage within Vietnam also allows HKBAV to select school locations closer to our members’ sites to encourage further CSR participation in supporting through local efforts. A 3-year commitment was entered into with a minimum of one library each year committed. The first library was set up in September 2016 in Vinh Long Province with a second one to be completed by May 2017.

A beginning to an end – Learning Centre for Nhat Hong Centre for the Blind & Visually Impaired
http://en.happysuncenter.org/gioi-thieu/

Nhat Hong Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired provides services to children and youth with vision impairment, especially to blind orphans and multiple impaired children.  Started in 1995, Nhat Hong has grown from caring for blind children to supporting children to integrate into normal education environment and a career training centre towards sustainable living.

They have 2 centres in D1 and D9 in HCMC.  HKBAV will contribute towards the building of a learning centre at each location with computers and braille readers to allow them to access internet materials and to learn foreign language also in hope for employment opportunities in the future.  Subsequent donations to be considered as the learning centre goes into operation.

Other Ad Hoc requests
We are also supporting CSR efforts of our members and member organizations through our funds as long as they meet the general objective of our focus “Enable Learning Imparting Knowledge”.  The funds to be utilized shall be approved by the Ex Co on a case by case basis upon recommendation of the Charity Committee.

Fund Raising Initiatives

Every year, Tung Shing Group supports our Charity Funds through the annual moon cakes sales.  Through Hanoi Hotel, HKBAV would be provided with 300 to 500 boxes of mooncakes to our members at a preferred price and all proceeds to our Charity Funds.  

In 2016, HKBAV organized the first charity golf tournament which shall become an annual event to create proactively a pipeline for funds for our committed initiatives.  HKBAV has been organizing golf tournaments in Vietnam and in the region since 1995. Sponsored by the SunWah Group, our first charity golf tournament was concluded as a success in November 2016 with over 15,000 USD raised towards our Charity Funds.

Feb 2017 updated