Introduction
“Young Leaders in Residence: Kim Lim & The Picha Project”, organized by Institute for Youth Sustainability Leadership (IYSL) and Student Affairs Office, and co-organized by Wu Jieh Yee Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK), is a five-day event that allowed HSUHK students to interact with the young guest to explore more about the issues of social enterprise, refugee awareness and youth leadership. A foreign guest, Kim Lim from Malaysia, was invited for the event to share her expertise and feelings in running a social enterprise called “The Picha Project” through three activities and her five-day stay in the Residential Colleges.
More about Kim Lim and Her Social Enterprise
Ms. Lim Yuet Kim (Kim Lim)
Kim is the CEO and co-founder of “The Picha Project”, a social enterprise that helps rebuild lives of refugees in Malaysia through a sustainable food business. Kim led the team to win The Chivas Venture 2017/18 in Malaysia and thrived into the Top 5 at the international level. In 2018, Kim and the other two co-founders of The Picha Project were listed in Forbes “30 under 30 Asia”. Apart from the role of an entrepreneur, as Kim studied in Music in her undergraduate studies, she is also a musician, a composer, a conductor, and a guitarist.
The Picha Project
The Picha Project provides job opportunities by creating a platform for refugees in Malaysia to cater food from their hometowns to the public, and offering professional guidance to the families. The enterprise reaches success that a lot of companies, including corporate companies, are their returning customers. The enterprise has been named as “The Picha Project” since the first cooperation with the refugee family from Myanmar that the 3-year-old son of the family is called Pita (read as Pi-Cha).
More about “Young Leaders in Residence: Kim Lim & The Picha Project”
The event consisted of three activities in the week of October 8 to 12, 2019. The series of activities enabled HSUHK students to deeply explore the issues of social enterprise, refugee awareness and youth leadership in the global arena.
On October 8, a guest lecture “The Life of A. Musing – The Story of Starting a Social Enterprise for Helping Refugees” was held by Kim to share her experience and challenges in running The Picha Project to students and staff members.
On October 9, Kim gave a speech in the University Hall with the topic of “How Can You be YOU and Make a Change” in the Joint High Table Dinner of Residential Colleges (RC) to share her valuable thoughts to over 500 participants, including student residents, RC Masters, Associate Masters, Resident Tutors, RC Fellows, and academic and administrative staff members. Kim shared her own experience in making changes to the community and encouraged students to embrace their beliefs which could make contributions to their families, the community and the world.
On October 11, students, refugees in Hong Kong, and Kim together recreated The Picha Project at the RC. Refugees served homemade food and share their stories of their lives to students. In the dinner gathering, the refugees and Kim played music that all students enjoyed the meaningful and fun night with them.
