Pinoy, Indian studes want to sell ‘happiness’

The members of winning team "Plannr" Sukhani (2nd from left), Dobariya (3rd from left), Puentespina (middle), Tan (3rd from right), Kaur (2nd from right) receive an award

A GROUP of ethnic minority students, composed of two Filipinos and three Indians who want to sell “happiness” and introduce the cultures of the minorities to the local people in Hong Kong, won in the recently-concluded social enterprise competition sponsored by Hysan Development Co. Ltd., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Hong Kong Christian Service (HKCS).

Calling themselves “Plannr”, the team, composed of Filipino students Jona Marie Puentespina and Ken Jeremy Cudia, and Indian students Simranpeet Kaur, Hetvi Pravin Dobariya, and Ritika Sukhani, from St. Margaret’s Co-Educational English Secondary and Primary School beat out five other teams to receive $30,000 prize money, and trophies and certificates.

“Exploration for Hope” is a social enterprise competition, whereby competing teams explored different social issues and received training in social enterprise development as well as business knowledge.

More than 50 participants joined the competition, but only six groups were chosen to be finalists. Each team is composed of three to six students.

The competing ethnic minority students were mentored by HKUST undergraduate business school students.

Besides being named as champion, Plannr also won the “Best Presentation” award.

Meanwhile, another team “The Octagon”, composed of Filipino students Luiza Xyra Asperin Sace, Angelo Carlo Letran Anico, Rockford Blue Asercion, Macx Jigger Delfino Camarillo, and Cristian Arvin Flores Lagaso, from Delia Memorial School (Hip Wo) won the “Audience Choice” award.

Plannr’s business plan said it will be the “first ever ethnic minority event planning company organizing ethnic festivals and events.”

“Plannr’s main service is connecting ethnic minority customers to caterers, decorators, entertainers, and event venues in Hong Kong with ease so that they will be more encouraged to celebrate their traditional festivals and events in Hong Kong,” the group’s business plan said.

Kaur said she originally wanted to focus on education, but many government departments and non-government organizations “are already handling the issue and it was improving drastically.”

“Then I thought of what I wanted to achieve, I thought about happiness. I want ethnic minorities to be happy, and what do you do to make them happy? You celebrate. So I thought why not have an ethnic minorities’ planning company that will help them feel at home here in Hong Kong,” she said.

Puentespina also thought of Sinulog, an annual cultural and religious festival held on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City, when pitching ideas during their group discussion.  Puentespina was born in the Philippines but her family moved to Hong Kong.

“I kept thinking about it and I thought we should have more of that Sinulog here,” she said.

Kaur added that helping ethnic minorities celebrate their festivals in Hong Kong seeks to achieve two things: introducing their culture to the local people and helping the children of ethnic minorities learn more about their cultural identity.

“Since I was a child, I go back to India every year to celebrate my festival…Some of my friends don’t know anything about our culture. They know more about Chinese culture than their own culture,” she said.

Cudia, who was born here in Hong Kong to Filipino parents, said their business plan focuses on giving ethnic minorities a platform to express themselves.

“After all we are the minority in Hong Kong and we just want to be heard a little bit more,” he said.

Dobariya said as an ethnic minority, she sometimes gets discriminated, but hopes that if they are able to put up their events planning company, it would be a way to foster better understanding between the local people and the ethnic minorities.

“I do get discriminated sometimes,. but we believe that thru Plannr, the locals will know more about ethnic minorities’ culture and they can understand them and, in a way, get to know each other,” she said.

Sukhani said the group wants to instill among ethnic minorities a sense of belonging, and also help them preserve their cultural backgrounds.

The Octagon group, on the other hand, plans to offer a three-in-one service, namely Chinese language lessons, resource classes, and career consultancy services.

The first runner up team “Ed Provision” wants to be a tutorial “middleman” agency to arrange older ethnic minority students to provide teaching services for younger students, while the team that came third, “A4s” is keen to get ethnic minority ladies to run a fusion restaurant to boost the latter’s employment and confidence.