HKU Bulletin February 2013 (Vol. 14 No. 2)

Knowledge Exchange Students applied for funding, organised workshops and a press conference, and staged a carnival with three weeks’ notice, while Mr Bishop and other board members lined up advisors and private donors from the community. The students have also recycled the soap themselves. About 25 hotels, such as the two Disneyland hotels and the Renaissance HK Harbour View, agreed to donate bars of soap left behind by guests that would otherwise be thrown away. The soap is scraped to remove impurities, and when necessary, combined into new bars. It is stored in a warehouse space paid for by donors – New World Development and the Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation are big supporters – before being sent or brought to places in the region that can use the soap. The soap is distributed through existing channels and through volunteers to communities where it can do the most good. The target is mainly schools and orphanages where children can learn about the importance of good hygiene practices at a young age. “We make an impact” Students have responded enthusiastically to their Soap Cycling involvement. Joyce Leung Ho-yan and Janice So Wing-in, both second- year BBA(Law) students, respectively the Communications Manager and Marketing Manager of Soap Cycling, say their experience has been invaluable. “I feel I learn so much faster than being in an organisation where they tell me what to do,” says Joyce. “And I’ve met people I never would get a chance to be entrepreneurs without risking capital, and I would provide guidance, resources, contacts and support.” Soap Cycling is born Their first enterprise is Soap Cycling, a company that collects little-used soap from hotels, recycles it and distributes it in Hong Kong and developing countries to help enhance hygiene. As nearly 30 per cent of all deaths for children under five years old stem from diseases that can be dramatically reduced simply by washing hands with soap, Soap Cycling aims to not only remove thousands of kilos of waste from landfills, but also to save lives. The planning began in 2011 and in September last year the project was officially launched. Internships can be a great opportunity for students to experience daily working life inside a company related to their field, but they do have a drawback: students come in at a very junior level and are not often given the chance to make decisions, nor to suffer the consequences when they make mistakes. This situation has motivated David Bishop, BBA(Law) and LLB Programme Coordinator and Senior Teaching Consultant in the School of Business, to put the ball in the students’ court and let them run their own enterprises. “You can’t be a leader until you get the opportunity to make mistakes and fail,” he says. “So I thought why not give students a company and let them run it for me. They would have expected to meet as a student, such as the head of the Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation. It feels good, like we’re on the same playing field.” Janice was impressed by the speed at which they were able to get Soap Cycling up and running given their academic and other commitments. “I learn every day in this organisation and I feel everything I do here makes an impact on the world. That’s the kind of satisfaction that keeps me working,” she says. A youth movement These are early days, though. Donations recently enabled the project to purchase a machine to do the recycling work and greatly increase the output – more than 40 other hotels want to join Soap Cycling and soon there will be the capacity to include them. A General Manager was also appointed early this year to oversee the enterprise under a structure that closely involves the students. The main board consists of Mr Bishop and other HKU academic staff and donors. But directly beneath them are student directors in charge of such areas as production, collection, marketing and communications, accounting, human resources, and legal. “If they make a mistake, because they will and they do, guys like me are there to fill in the gaps. We don’t want to hold their hands but we understand they need some guidance,” he says. “But this is a real position. Their faces will be on the webpage, they have business cards. If they don’t do their jobs they will be fired. What I always tell students and our corporate sponsors is that this is not a company so much as a youth movement.” In the long run, he says, they hope to franchise Soap Cycling to other universities in Asia, translating this youth movement into a regional force. For more information about Soap Cycling, go to www.soapcycling.org and Facebook.com/ soapcycling. M Triple Bottom Line A soap recycling enterprise by members from the School of Business benefits the environment, promotes hygiene and gives students an invaluable opportunity to lead. 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