As you were reading the impact story of our October-December 2025 Community Business Internship (CBI), the Spring 2026 iteration of our CBI Program was already underway, with the funding support of the Hong Kong Club Foundation and the Drs Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation.
Spanning from February to April 2026, four ethnically diverse youths were matched with ethnically diverse micro and small businesses, including restaurants, grocery shops, and small traders, based on their interests and language or cultural fit.
From providing ethnically diverse entrepreneurs with support in branding, design, digital marketing, and community outreach, the interns were tasked with increasing the visibility and professionalism of the businesses that they were matched with, while introducing FSI’s Project GuideFong and Google Business listings to neighborhoods like Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai.
Meet the 2026 Spring Cohort of CBI Interns
Comprising ethnically diverse youths who grew up and studied in Hong Kong and speak multiple languages native to the ethnically diverse communities, the Spring 2026 cohort enriched the program experience with a mix of academic backgrounds (e.g., education, social work, and social science) and lived experiences in neighborhoods like Jordan, Yuen Long, and Tin Shui Wai.
Before reading about the youths’ internship experience and the impact they created, meet them here:
Gurung Bharosa
- Ethnicity: Nepalese, born and raised in Hong Kong
- Education: Year 3 student at The Education University of Hong Kong, studying English with the goal of becoming an English teacher.
- Self-intro: Her motivation comes from childhood experiences of not being understood when she could only speak her native language, which showed her how limiting language barriers can be. She brings strengths in writing, community engagement, and cultural sensitivity, and hopes to develop project management, social entrepreneurship, and leadership skills. In the long term, she aims to empower ethnically diverse communities by helping them build confidence and reach through language.
Khan Soha
- Ethnicity: Pakistani, raised in Hong Kong
- Education: Year 2 social science student at HKU SPACE Community College.
- Self-intro: A social science student passionate about social issues and community engagement. She brings skills in graphic design, social media marketing, writing, photography, and research on social problems, and is curious about social entrepreneurship and community projects. As a side goal, she hopes to build her own website on social needs, and sees this internship as an eye‑opening way to explore community‑driven change.
Hajira Batool
- Ethnicity: Pakistani, born and raised in Hong Kong
- Education: Currently a Year 1 social work student at The University of Hong Kong.
- Self-intro: Hajira loves reading, journaling, cycling, and hiking. She works part‑time at an NGO, where she organizes activities and handles admin, and has already completed two internships, including a previous FSI Community Business Internship in summer 2024. She brings experience in community engagement, writing, public speaking, photography, videography, and project management, and is eager to deepen her skills in marketing, entrepreneurship, and leadership while giving back to ethnically diverse communities. She is motivated by “helping and giving back to the community so that they can thrive in what they do,” and sees CBI as a way to deepen both her professional skills and her connection to ethnically diverse businesses through the lens of a prospective social worker.
Olly Carter Manson
- Ethnicity: Mixed Ethnicity – Chinese and British, born and raised in Hong Kong
- Education: Year 1 student in a foundation program at HKU SPACE Po Leung Kuk, at an early stage of his tertiary journey.
- Self-intro: Very devoted to helping all communities in Hong Kong, with personal interests in gaming and sailing alongside community work. Brings and wants to deepen skills in public speaking, social entrepreneurship, cultural sensitivity, and community engagement, and is eager to grow in leadership and business consulting.
CBI Program: Empowering Ethnically Diverse Youths to Clarify Career Interests by Supporting Under-resourced Entrepreneurs
Describing themselves as still early in their respective professional journeys and unsure how to work with business clients at the beginning of the CBI Program, the four interns were nonetheless enthusiastic about supporting ethnically diverse small businesses, especially those that are lesser known or under‑recognized, by gaining an in-depth understanding of the challenges facing the business owners.
With preliminary skills in communication, graphic design, social media content creation, and research, the ethnically diverse youths were looking to improve existing skills and learn new skills through listing new businesses to the GuideFong Directory, engaging with business owners, and providing bespoke support such as digital branding. Through the experiential learning internship, they also hoped to clarify career interests in marketing, community engagement, social entrepreneurship, and design.
Serving as business consultants, the interns had conversations with ethnically diverse business owners about pricing, customer flows, scams, location issues, and renovation costs etc., to gain a more realistic understanding of their operating environment and challenges.
The interns then translated these insights into practical actions: listing businesses on the GuideFong Directory, creating Google profiles for the businesses, improving visual communication, and creating content for outreach.
With their work outputs, the interns were able to increase the online and offline visibility of participating ethnically diverse businesses, allowing them to reach new and more diverse customers.
Collectively, the four ethnically diverse youth interns:
- Participated in five in‑person outreach visits to ethnically diverse micro and small businesses in districts such as Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai, identifying new “hidden” shops for direct business support.
- Added 15 new ethnically diverse-owned businesses to the GuideFong Directory.
- Created two new or improved Google profiles for selected ethnically diverse‑owned businesses, increasing their visibility in local search and map results.
- Designed and improved three menus and leaflets for ethnically diverse-owned businesses, including a polished Cantonese menu and leaflet for Shalimar Indian Restaurant and updated menus for other restaurants and shops.
- Developed logos and other brand identity elements for one new small business, giving them clearer, more professional visual identities.
- Created two business card designs and other marketing materials for selected businesses, making it easier for the business owners to share their contact details and brand with customers.
- Curated four social media‑ready content (reels, posts, templates) to showcase ethnically diverse-owned businesses and supported ongoing digital promotion on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Measurable Personal and Professional Growth for Ethnically Diverse Youths
While the interns entered the CBI Program with ambivalence about their employability, they rated their employability at 7 to 8 out of 10 by the end of the program, simultaneously reporting significant skills gain in stakeholder communication and outreach, confidence (especially among more introverted youth), branding, graphic design, using digital tools, storytelling, copywriting, and social media content creation.
“I’m happy with how I have been thoroughly pushed out of my comfort zone when going on outreach sessions,” said Gurung Bharosa. “Usually, I would keep talking to strangers at a minimum, but during this time, I was properly challenged to do an in-person version of cold calling. Undoubtedly terrifying, but also undeniably useful.”
Crediting the CBI Program as a way to gain consulting‑style experience and a portfolio of real‑world outputs, the interns gained a thorough understanding of the ethnically diverse business ecosystem and the challenges facing entrepreneurs, including fierce competition and the pressure to keep prices low, lack of online presence and marketing capacity, heavy emotional and physical labor, falling victim to scams, and various hidden operational costs.
Said Hajira Batool: “One key takeaway would be that reconnecting with my community through helping them is always going to be an enlightening experience for me, as not only do I get to know more about those ethnically diverse businesses, but I also assist them to help their businesses grow.”
An Empowerment Program Equipping Youth with Community-based Experiences and Essential Skills
With real work experiences and a work portfolio under their belt, all four interns said they would recommend the CBI Program to their friends, especially to youth seeking hands‑on, community‑based experience and ways to build soft skills (teamwork, confidence, communication) that are otherwise hard to acquire or practise.
“During the internship, I improved my soft skills, including communication and confidence,” said Hajira Batool. “As I’m more of an introverted person, this internship allowed me to communicate with business owners and ask them questions about their business. I recommended this internship to my friend and we both joined this cohort. In the future, I would also like to recommend it to more of my friends, since I believe it is a great way to learn soft skills, such as teamwork, confidence, and communication.”
“I would recommend this program to others,” said Khan Soha. “I think it is a great way to learn and engage with the community and gain relevant skills related to business development and marketing. It’s also a way to meet and network with new people.” The impact we create to empower disadvantaged youth would not have been possible without the dedicated support of funders and skilled volunteers. If you would like to support our youth empowerment initiatives by engaging your employees or leveraging your professional skills and expertise, get in touch with us at info@shared-impact.com!
