History
The Great Commandments International Family Service (GCIFS) was established in early 2022 as a subsidiary of the Great Commandments International Limited (GCIL), a non-governmental organization registered in Hong Kong in 2013 and holding a Charitable Organization License under Section 88 issued by the Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department (File No. 91/12336). Both organizations are guided by the spirit of Christian service to society.
The founder of GCIL is Katy Hau, a native Hong Kong citizen and a mother of two - her daughter Nat is involved in serving our city’s underprivileged groups, while her son Nick is a senior engineer working in Texas, USA. KC , Katy's husband, is a professional financial manager. They both have much experience in serving the commercial sector.
In addition to her past involvement in real estate development, finance, jewellery import/export, retail, and manufacturing, Katy has also founded six start-up businesses, including a job placement agency using big data matching, vocational training, catering, IT/digital educational content production, a language education institution in Shanghai, and GCIL’s NGO charitable business. She has also planned two upcoming initiatives - a summer program aims at empowering student’s audiovisual and comprehension skills, as well as a cultural exchange Shanghai study tour expected to take place in the fall.
The couple have a deep concern for non-Cantonese families living in Hong Kong and expatriate (minority) families residing in Shanghai. According to Katy, to some extent, the situation of non-mainstream students attending international schools in Shanghai is similar to that of ethnic minority and new immigrant children in Hong Kong - they both lack a clear sense of identity, study in schools with culture unrelated to their own native cultural background。 Their relationships with peers of similar backgrounds are often close but can be disrupted due to situation such as further study overseas. Besides, there can also be mutual exclusion amongst ethnic minorities due to cultural, religious or social status (e.g. permanent residency) differences. Katy says the hidden pain caused by ethnic minorities’ unidentified status is similar to the struggle in establishing solid identity caused by losing both parents at the early part of her life.
From a historical perspective, Katy used to focus on serving 8-15 year old expatriate students mainly from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore in Shanghai. Now, through GCIFL’s services, about 60% of the beneficiary children are 4-14 year olds from (non-Cantonese) diverse national backgrounds, with 40% from mainstream families and new immigrants from mainland China.
Vision:
The identity of new immigrant and ethnic minority children living in big cities is difficult to establish.
Mission:
Provide culturally integrated activities to empower local, mainland Chinese immigrant, and ethnic minority children as a mean to to promote community inclusion.
