The Nexus BRN is delighted to announce our participation at the upcoming event by be/longing, Seated With Strangers: a 2-day festival at the Eaton House celebrating cultures, stories, and spaces of belonging. Along with participants A and U from our Navigating Belonging workshops, we will be sharing at the Chats Over Cha session on 18 March (Saturday, 3 - 4PM). Join us, our hosts, and our co-guests in dialogue on what it means to engaged in social impact.

Seated With Strangers「搭檯」

Seated With Strangers「搭檯」is a weekend of music and arts intended to carve out a space of radical joy in commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. At the center of be/longing’s ethos is the idea that creating cultures of inclusion is possible insofar as we are able to hold space for each other. Chats Over Cha, are facilitated discussion forums wherein we are given the space to share our stories and histories. Our Chats Over Chas invite you to hold space for these stories, engage in productive dialogue, reflect, and become catalysts for sustainable change.

We recall the prefix “ka-” used in the Filipino language which means “to be with.” It is used in words like “kaibigan” (friend), and even “katunggali” (rival). To us, this says a lot about how important relationality, or connectedness with one another is, particular in the journey towards social justice. There’s a power that comes in learning from each other, as well as being in dialogue with and in community with one another. This kick-off Chats Over Cha makes room for organizations, practitioners, researchers, as well as service users within Hong Kong's social impact space to enter into dialogue with one another and discuss what it means to collectively build community in Hong Kong. We'll address the challeges we've faced so far, how we've been able to navigate those challenges, as well as what gaps are there and how we can synergize our efforts to maximize impact.

Guest organizations, in alphabetical order:

Nexus: The Belonging Research Network |  A and U, Participants of Navigating Belonging

Navigating Belonging asks what it means to belong, for people from South Asian backgrounds across generations in Hong Kong. Using linguistic and visual ethnography and co-production, the project addresses this question through the sociolinguistic study of narratives and through participatory photography. In so doing, it offers enhanced understanding of belonging and settlement to inform practice and policy.

EmpowerU | Bradley Aaron and Sumichhya Gurung

EmpowerU is a non-profit education and empowerment organisation that provides marginalised communities with the tools necessary to take control over their economic future. EmpowerU began with a focus on migrant domestic workers (“MDW”) and expanded in 2020 to serve ethnically diverse youth in Hong Kong through the community-based PowerThru education programme. The mission is to develop leaders who will ignite sustainable social impact for future generations

Foundation for Shared Impact | Vivian Seo

Vivian Seo, Community Business Support Manager at Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), is an active advocate and practitioner of social entrepreneurship. Born in Korea but now finding Hong Kong home, she aims to spread the values of shared impact achieved through personal and collective empowerment in Hong Kong.

FSI is an S88 charity in Hong Kong with a mission to solve society's most challenging problems through community building and sharing resources. FSI's Community Business Support Program nurtures and supports social entrepreneurs and under-represented entrepreneurs to scale and grow.

Institute of Leadership and Management Foundation Ltd. | Luisa Nadia Castro

Luisa is co-founder of Institute of Leadership and Management Foundation Ltd. (ILM). A firm believer in bottom-up approach to community-organizing, she initiates through ILM HK, projects that nurtures a growth mindset by utilizing the design thinking framework to empower EM changemakers. 

Project Ethnic Minority Empowerment | Adnan Riaz

Project Ethnic Minority Empowerment (PEME) is a youth organization where a group of students work on empowering Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong through mentorship, networking and advocacy. 

WeDo Global | Bosco Ng

WEDO GLOBAL is a social enterprise established in 2011. We design and organize multicultural community tours, cultural workshops as well as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for corporations, schools and organizations. The objective is to enhance cultural understanding and facilitate social inclusion. On the other hand, we provide training and working opportunities to empower ethnic minority youths and housewives to co-create positive changes and impacts in the society.

Bosco is the Founder of WEDO GLOBAL. He has extensive experience designing and conducting training programmes over a decade for a wide range of professions and sectors across Asia. Training topics cover social innovation and entrepreneurship, diversity and inclusion, cultural intelligence, and design thinking. He was appointed by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) to be the Advisory Committee Member on Racial Equality and Integration to work towards the elimination of racial barriers in Hong Kong.