Social enterprises in Hong Kong are helping locals tackle the new coronavirus crisis and its impacts – from providing face masks, to keeping students educated while schools are shut down.
Soap Cycling, for example, reclaims soap from hotels and distributes them to street cleaners to maintain public hygiene and limit the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19. With the help of a local partner and volunteers, the organization now also provides hygiene kits and masks to 3,000 of the city’s street cleaners.
Hong Kong has just postponed reopening its schools until April, but London-based social enterprise, Century, is offering affected students an artificial intelligence learning platform for free, in an aim to keep the 12,000 students in Hong Kong, China and Vietnam educated from home through tablets or phones.
Another example of business that aims to do good is Rooftop Republic, which normally promotes urban farming but has for the sake of tackling the virus teamed up with a supplier to design reusable eco-friendly masks for workers to put over surgical ones during humid weather.
