Young workers desire purpose-driven careers. This reality continues to be reaffirmed by surveys such as Deloitte Global’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey of 23,482 young workers across 44 countries. The survey results are yet another resounding corroboration: 89% of Gen Z and 92% of millennials said that purpose is important to their job satisfaction and wellbeing.
At Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), our award-winning work in youth empowerment enables us to glean first-hand insights on the critical factors motivating the young workforce. With purpose and impact central to our work and the collaboration opportunities we offer to our partners, we share our insights on purpose-driven career pathways broadly with human resource professionals and employers at roundtable discussions and our Starting Your Impact Journey workshops, and we offer youth the opportunity and a safe environment to acquire essential skills while working at social impact organizations.
Careers with a Cause Workshop
On 19 September, we held the “Careers with a Cause” workshop for 13 youth aged 15-20 years, to help them discover a purpose-driven career in Hong Kong’s social sector, by aligning their personal strengths with the various roles and professional skills within the social impact sector.
The youth, who joined the workshop to learn more about the social impact sector and internship opportunities, took turns to introduce themselves before diving into the group activity, “Purpose-Driven Job Hunt”, where they looked at real job postings and determined whether they had the skills and knowledge required of the positions. They were also introduced to job search platforms such as Recruit4Good, which caters to employers and job applicants in the social impact space.
Guided by Adnan Riaz, FSI’s Community Business Support Assistant, and Velda Tam, FSI’s Youth Empowerment Program Manager, youth participants also learned to envision socially impactful work beyond the stereotypical “social work”, not least by gaining an understanding of the differences between NGOs, social enterprises, and community centers.
The youth then reflected on their strengths and passions during the “Personal Skills Handout” session. For example, Oluyesi Dada expressed a strong interest in the process of policy-making, with a focus on inclusive policies for ethnic minorities and the underprivileged. Highlighting empathy, communication, and being a good listener as his core strengths, Jayson Gabriel Bravo Mariano said that he is passionate about creating a safe space for individuals suffering from mental illnesses. Also a strong communicator, Richelle Gabucan said she wanted to narrow the gap and address the systematic disadvantages faced by ethnic minorities in the local education system.
Connecting Hong Kong Youth to Purpose-driven Internships
After sharing with the youth the technical and soft skills that are essential to building a purpose-driven career in the social impact sector, Adnan and Veleda gave them an overview of various avenues to engage with the social sector, from university programs to impactful volunteering initiatives.
Amongst these initiatives, the most directly accessible is our Community Business Internship (CBI) Program for disadvantaged ethnically diverse youths, and our Community Business Youth Internship Program for disadvantaged Chinese-speaking youth. Designed and implemented by FSI, the CBI Program is a win-win solution for all involved: it equips youth with essential human skills and transferable workplace skills through the invaluable support they provide to under-resourced entrepreneurs, who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access the support services.
Participating youth found the most valuable aspects of the workshop to be the clear and structured information on Hong Kong’s social sector, including the different types of organizations and the diverse range of job opportunities available, which increased their confidence in applying their skills to build a purpose-driven career. In addition to the hands-on activities, the youth also enjoyed the opportunity to connect with and learn from their peers.
Building a Purpose-driven Career with FSI
At FSI, we are committed to nurturing today’s youth into tomorrow’s social impact leaders. Check out our impact-driven youth empowerment programs here, and get in touch with us at info@shared-impact.com if you would like to explore designing bespoke programs for your students.
We also run training workshops to help professionals build a purposeful career. You may learn more about our Starting Your Impact Journey program here.
We would like to thank the Hive Hong Kong, our mission-aligned venue partner, for allowing us to use its Poho space to conduct the workshop. If you would like to support our programs, please consider making a tax-exempt donation to enable us to scale our programs to benefit more people.
