Knowledge Brings Opportunities

When I started my career in 1987, I pioneered a programme that encouraged young Vietnamese refugees to work in white-collar jobs rather than working in factories or become delivery boys. In 1994, Christian Action was gazetted as one of Employees Retraining Board (ERB)’s official partners to help people in Hong Kong re-enter the workforce.

Many of my faithful readers already know that a large portion of my career involved running job training and placement programmes.  This October, we had the honour to host the Christian Action Training Services Partners Appreciation Ceremony 2020. We welcomed representatives from different companies to our Choi Wan headquarters.

CA was humbled to receive one recognition and three awards from the ERB: “Manpower Developer”, Outstanding Awards for Promotion and Marketing, Placement Services (Course for General Public), and Course Development. These accolades are a testament to the excellence we promote at CA. Recently, we have started offering online courses in Foundation Certificate in Vocational Cantonese I for Non-Chinese Speakers (Part-time) and Foundation Certificate in Assistant for Chinese Medical Clinic Training to adjust to teaching in the days of social distancing and gathering limits.

Mr. Byron Ng, BBS, Executive Director of ERB, celebrated CA’s long-term partnership with the Board and highlighted the importance of being “adaptive” and “responsive to develop courses that meet the changing needs of the market”. After offering service-industry training in the early days, our ERB courses have now expanded to include digital skills, enabling our population to stay updated with the ever-evolving job market through learning.

We also took the opportunity to interview our award-winning instructors and students. Here’s what they had to say:

“To keep our spirits high during these hard days, my colleagues and students support each other on WhatsApp.” - Edmond Yiu, Recipient of “ERB Outstanding Award for Instructors”, Foundation Certificate in Adventure Based Activities Assistant Training   "Sometimes, my students show me videos of coffee art they found online and want to re-create them in class; their passion is a huge motivator for me.” – Angus Wong, Recipient of “ERB Merit Award for Instructors”, Foundation Certificate in Barista Training   “Prior to joining the course, I had no experience in caretaking. Under my instructor’s guidance, I picked up the skills easily. I have been a support worker for two years now.” – Leung Mun Lin, Recipient of “ERB Outstanding Award for Trainees”, Foundation Certificate in Care Worker Training

These words of success are truly the biggest compliment to Christian Action. A big thank you again to all my colleagues who organise and coordinate our courses, and also to our students for their openness to learn and their ambition to re-join the workforce. Knowledge will bring the opportunity to make a change in your life, we look forward to welcoming more students in our programme!