Did you know the second woman magistrate in Hong Kong, Mrs Cynthia Bowman Marr, has sat in the Juvenile Courts at Fanling Magistracy in 1969? Today, the proportion of women in senior management roles globally grew to 31%, the highest number ever recorded¹, thus showing a need for a stage for building women leadership in the presence of social diversity. To celebrate International Women’s Day 2022, let’s discover how our two young alumnae Alison Carless and Sakshi Vasudev use their ways to give back to their community for a sustainable future. 

Alison Carless, a Form 6 student at Diocesan Girls' School, was a participant of HK200 Leadership Project 2020 ("HK200") and the founder of Buddy Wiser. This nonprofit organisation provides free tutorials to children from low-income backgrounds and ethnic minorities. HK200 selects 200 outstanding senior secondary school students with leadership potential to participate in various training and uphold the spirit of "My Commitment to Hong Kong". It provided Alison with a chance to identify the critical social issues in Hong Kong and inspired her to serve the community proactively. Reflecting on the education inequality in the society, in 2020, she and her team started to reach out to the underprivileged children living in subdivided flats and Tong Lau buildings in Sham Shui Po to provide free tutorials. She is blessed that HK200 has equipped her to become a leader with empathy and future skills. "I particularly enjoyed speaking to entrepreneurs of social innovation projects, which resonated with my own experiences in the joys and difficulties of setting up and leading a nonprofit organisation," says Alison. Education matters for sustainability. Witnessing her ethnic minority students feel more confident and motivated in speaking Chinese and receiving gratitude from the student's parents, her future goal is to continuously apply the skills and knowledge learnt from HK200 to meet the needs of others in our society to create positive sustainable change in the future.
 

Sakshi Vasudev, a current accountancy undergraduate at the City University of Hong Kong, joined the Summer School of Global Leadership ("SSGL") in 2018 and the HKFYG English Public Speaking Contest in 2019. She is now the founder of BamPads!, producing reusable cloth menstrual pads. SSGL aims to create a culturally diverse learning environment for the participants and present them with the best learning experience. It offers a unique curriculum combining "Exclusive Visits" to corporates, start-ups, and the community and "Interactive Workshops" that address a range of global issues. SSGL provided Sakshi a culturally diverse learning environment with local and overseas participants to learn about smart city development and leadership. It encouraged her to rethink her leadership potential to start her social enterprise in women's rights. "SSGL arranged a dialogue session with a global leader from Sweden, Tafan, founder of EmpoWERment. Her story of building capacity herself from a refugee woman to a founder of an NGO serving others ignited a fire in me to help my fellow women," recalls Sakshi. Drawing on her own experiences and realising that disposable pads are harmful to the environment, she founded Bampads! to educate more women, aiming to change the future of sustainable menstruation. Workshops are organised to educate women further to maximise impact. Looking forward, Sakshi wants to be a leader who can bring everyone together as a team stronger and better than before and lead Bampads! to be the "menstrual right" organisation in Hong Kong to achieve equal menstrual hygiene rights for all. 

“Gender equality” is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, aiming to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. So, do these two girls agree to have more women in leadership? Sakshi says, "having more women in leadership positions empowers the younger generation and allows a different workplace view."  Alison thinks, “I believe that women are needed in leadership to provide new perspectives in decision-making. However, when we touch on gender identity concerns, it is not just about men or women, but also transgender or non-binary people. We need those with the most relevant skill set to be leaders in society, regardless of sex or gender.” What’s your view?