New Funding Grant from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation

Chatteris’ Community Partnerships Director George Tarling chats through our new funding from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation…

Chatteris is delighted to announce that the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation has generously agreed to renew its sponsorship of our “One for One, Adopt a School” project with a grant that will allow us to expand “One for One” to four new secondary schools across the next three years!

“One for One” supports schools catering to a high proportion of students from less privileged backgrounds. These schools do not receive any targeted funding or extra financial support to develop the English language skills of their students. Moreover, these students often come from families which can struggle to afford other experiences that expose them to the English language used in real life contexts.

As a subject that is key to unlocking doors in their further education and careers, we believe these students deserve equal opportunities to develop their English as their more privileged peers. “One for One” is our answer to this issue.

By securing the support of a committed external sponsor, the project gives our beneficiary “One for One” schools access to a team of Chatteris Tutors who deliver our English Development Programme in the school. In this way, we further our mission to raise the English proficiency and self-confidence of Hong Kong’s young people, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds.

In 2016, the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation became the first external sponsor of our “One for One, Adopt a School” project in two partner secondary schools. With their support and guidance, we have been able to develop the “One for One” model over the last four years and enrich the English language education of our student beneficiaries through many new avenues beyond the traditional classroom setting including summer camps, inspirational guest talks, and office programmes with corporate supporters. We are extremely proud of how “One for One” has grown in this time, impacting 12 different schools and over 10,000 disadvantaged students. 

By collaborating with the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation in our upcoming project, we are also planning to reach a new beneficiary group for the first time. The four schools we will impact under the project all cater to a high proportion of newly-arrived children from Mainland China or cross-boundary students who travel to school in Hong Kong every day from Shenzhen.

These students face a range of additional challenges integrating into the Hong Kong education system, and often they are joining schools which are already at capacity supporting the needs of their students. With our new “One for One” project, we want to adapt our model and start supporting these students and their schools in a sustainable and scaleable manner. 

Of course, starting any new project at this time has a high potential for challenges in light of the continued uncertainty surrounding Covid-19. In our four new “One for One” schools, which were onboarded at the start of September, the Chatteris Tutors have only just met their students in-person for the first time due to school closures as a result of social distancing.

However, we have a creative and dedicated team of Chatteris Tutors in place who are committed to supporting their beneficiary students and seeking ways to reduce the impact of the coronavirus on their English language education as much as possible. As a team, we can’t wait for this project to begin in earnest, and to continue our partnership with the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation over the next three years.

Eager to work with Hong Kong’s less privileged students? Click here to find out more about our opportunities.