Care in Education and Recruitment
A group for students/graduates with disabilities which aims to act as a bridge between them,
tertiary education institutions and employers.
General Information (as at 14 January 2015)
Our Name

CareER: Care education and recruitment, CareER is playing an important role to
students/graduates with disabilities for the transition from school to the career development.

Care(er): CareER provides a peer support platform to encourage higher educated people with
disabilities to take responsibilities to the community, but not only being cared.

Career: CareER believes career is one of the most important elements to develop confidence
and talents in the disable community.
Purpose of CareER
CareER is being developed to meet the needs of students/graduates with disabilities when they are
choosing their higher education institution, once they commence their studies, and as they transit to
employment. These students/graduates are currently under-served in Hong Kong as identified in an
extensive research report for think tank Civic Exchange, published in 2012. 1 They need better
understanding of higher education services; greater levels of support whilst entering institutions,
sustaining their studies and transitioning to employment; a meeting point to share experiences with
other students/graduates.
CareER is initiating multiple services to meet these students’ needs, as well as a physical and virtual
infrastructure that bridges student, institutions and corporate communities. Around this infrastructure,
CareER will foster a community of supportive individuals with the longer-term aim of increasing the
access to higher education for students with disabilities, improving support available to them at higher
education institutions and enhancing opportunities for employment. The provision of visible paths and
tangible networks to help them secure appropriate employment will be a core focus.
Community impact
CareER aims to become the first port of call for students with disabilities to enable them to better
determine their choice of higher education institution and career path. The broader impact of CareER
and its activities should be the mobilization of a community of people to offer assistance to students
with disabilities. The longer-term impact should include better support of students and graduates with
disabilities, provision of a platform on which they may showcase their abilities, improvement in their
confidence levels, improved standards in support services of higher education institutions and changed
attitudes.
1
To read the report visit http://www.civic-exchange.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/120319disability_en.pdf
What is CareER?
CareER is a higher educated students/graduates community with disabilities founded and organized by
students/graduates with disabilities. It is established as a bridge between students/graduates with
disabilities and employers with targets to bring our members to be full contributing members in the
society.
CareER is a non-profit organisation grew from personal experience and research1 in the disabled
community. What emerged were the inadequacies in employment opportunities, support for career
and related advice from schools to enable students with disabilities to prepare for their career and
demonstrate their full potential in the work place. At present it is not uncommon for disabled
graduates unable to apply their knowledge and experience as professionals.
The CareER initiative is to address the aforesaid issues by constructing a bridge between employers
from different sectors, with high potential tertiary institution graduates/students with disabilities. We
envisage a community and a sharing platform for all parties to facilitate communication and
information flow, and create pre-employment networking opportunities for the graduates/students,
while exposing employers to the vast untapped resource that are qualified disabled people.
Vision
To maximize the capabilities of disabled students and graduates in the work force and in higher
education to enable them to become independent and contributing members of the community.
Mission

To connect students and graduates with disabilities with possibilities available in employment
and higher education, to attain their full potential through workshops, trainings, mentoring,
internships and networking.

To build peer sharing channels

To increase positive awareness amongst employers and in higher learning institutions that will
encourage capacity building and best practices in equality hiring and admissions.
Values
We believe, affirm and recognize the competence, capability and capacity of people with disabilities to
be independent, having the full potential to serve and contribute to society
Structure and staff
To achieve these aims the organizational structure includes: Board of Directors and CareER working
Team.
CareER Working Team manages the day-to-day work of developing and building CareER with ‘user’
input from the Student/graduates with disabilities at meetings every 2-3 weeks and corporate
governance from the Board of Directors at quarterly meetings.
Whilst operating with a social aim, CareER will be run on a professional basis with core business
principles on stringent, fully-transparent budgets. Whilst programmes and activities will be managed
with adequate budget to ensure appropriate levels of professionalism, resources and expertise will be
leveraged from existing contacts and networks where possible.
Organization Chart
Board of
Director
Executive
Team
Corporate
Team
Student
Member
Team
General
Team (IT ,HR
& Finance)
Founders
Walter Tsui
Walter graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011 with a
major in Economics and a minor in German Language. He was born with both
eyes visually impaired and now has about 10% sight. He is the founder of
mAccess, an association set up in 2012 to promote accessible technology and
currently also a Project Offer in a social enterprise.
Elvis Lau
Wai Kin graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 2008 with a Bachelor of
Science in Surveying. He has graduated from PhD-to-be on building accessibility
and works full time for the academia field.
Louisa Mitchell
Louisa is an independent social policy writer and researcher based in Hong
Kong. She specializes in qualitative and quantitative research on underrepresented communities in Asia, specifically women and people with
disabilities.
Board of Directors – Executive Committee
Eva Chau
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Faride Shroff
Founder & Director, SENsational Consultancy Ltd.
Ilex Lam
Fullness Social Enterprise Society
Lakshmi Jacota
Senior Development Officer, HK Federation of Youth Groups
Reina Cheng
Division Director, Robert Half
Programmes and activities
All activities are being designed with the aim of building the desired community and supporting
outstanding students/graduates with disabilities.
Peer support
This is generated through a network of current students and recent graduates of Hong Kong’s
universities and tertiary education institutions who either have a disability or who want to support
those with disabilities. CareER has created a virtual meeting place for students and graduates to share
their experiences and their knowledge, https://www.facebook.com/careerhk.
CareER is also in the process of designing its website to further enable virtual networking and
knowledge sharing.
CareER has planned to organize 6 peers support gathering in 2015 to focus on alumni sharing, career
counseling activities, job hunting skills and aspirational training.
Networking
CareER collaborates with other NGOs and employers to organize workshops to enable student and
graduates with disabilities to effectively expand their social network, increase their exposure to
professionals who may be able to guide them on their career path or offer them opportunities, and
meet with university staff who can support them during their university experience.
Students/graduates benefit not just from the introductions they gain at these workshops but from
sharing knowledge and experiences with their peers and from hearing inspirational speakers.
Employers benefit from increasing their understanding of and access to the talent pool of
students/graduates with disabilities and improving their communication skills with them.
CareER has organized 5 workshops in 2014. To effectively meet students/graduates needs, our
workshops have focused on job-hunting skills practice workshops and industry focused workshop.
CareER has co-operated with Community Business in 2013 and 2014 on the career fairs for disabilities.
Mentoring Scheme
CareER has partnered with tertiary institutions to organize mentoring programme for students or
recent graduates with disabilities. The Scheme will not only provide students/graduates with disabilities
with personal/professional support, insight to the workplace and an improved personal network, but
will have the dual effect of enabling companies to access a pool of talented individuals for employment
and further their understanding of the benefits of diversity.
It is a one-year programme for 60 students or graduates who will be ‘match-made’ with a corporate
executive. Both parties will self-select but a structured networking event and guidance from partnering
tertiary institution will help to facilitate the best match possible. Participants will commit to attend a
minimum number of mentor/mentee meetings and to provide regular evaluation feedback to
organizing committee so as to ensure the success of the programme and to provide learning for the
next programme.
Internships
CareER is developing an internship programme along the lines of Australia’s highly successful ‘Stepping
into…’ programme which is managed by the Australian Network on Disability.2 The aim is to facilitate
students with disabilities to secure practical work experience during university holidays, which provides
them with the opportunity to showcase their skills and enhance their experience. Ultimately, the goal is
to help them to obtain long-term employment with their chosen profession once they graduate and to
connect employers with tertiary education institutions so that appropriate opportunities are channeled
to students/graduates.
CareER has already facilitated 4 students internship. They were offered a paid internship at leading
global law firm, King & Wood Mallesons and a global telecom leader Telstra. 3 student interns work two
days per week for four months and one working 4 days a week for one month, enabling them to
develop office skills and enhance their confidence whilst still giving time to look for a long-term,
permanent job.
Status of CareER today (10st January 2015)
The CareER working team has been working together on a part-time and voluntary basis for over a year
to implement the visions and missions for CareER.
5 workshops for CareER students, 4 student internship opportunities and a mentoring programme were
achieved in 2014. A milestone achievement in December 2014, CareER has been registered as a charity
with IRD in Hong Kong.
In 2015, CareER has restructured to be more strategic and professional regulated organization by
formalizing our Board of Director on 10th January 2015 and forming our committed CareER working
team with talents with disabilities as well as experts from HR field.
2
For more information on ‘Stepping into…’, visit http://www.and.org.au/pages/stepping-into...-programs.html