By PP Herman Lo – Chair of District Community Service Seminar 2025/2026

District Community Service Seminar was held on 30 August 2025 and attracted 134 people attended the seminar. The theme of this seminar was “Partnership – Service Beyond Rotary” in which Rotary and community leaders and service partners were brought together to explore an exciting approach to leverage Rotarians’ service experience and leadership skills to better service the society by reaching out to other organisations.

The seminar commenced with keynote speeches delivered by three privileged keynote speakers namely Ms Joyce Chan, Commissioner for Women Affairs, PDG Joseph Lee, founder of Wofoo Social Enterprises and Ms Cheung Lai Wah, Business Director of Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS).

Title of Ms Joyce Chan’s speech was “Supporting Family and Women for Sustainable Community Development” in which Ms Joyce Chan described some Government approaches such as Family Council, Funding Scheme on the Promotion of Family Education (Five-Year), Hong Kong Excellent Family Awards and Women Empowerment Fund to demonstrate Government initiatives on women and family.

PDG Joseph Lee who is the 1989-1990 District Governor of D3450 who founded Wofoo Social Enterprises (Wofoo) and gave his speech tilted “Partnership – Service Beyond Rotary”. PDG Joseph initiated his speech by underlining Rotary values including Four- Way Test and Service above Self. He shared his Rotary service experiences particularly during his tenure as a District Governor, he brought out the importance of service and recognised efforts made by PDG Nuno Jorge. He also outlined his works both in Wofoo and public services. With over 30 years of service and achievements attained make PDG Joseph Lee a remarkable example of serving beyond Rotary to better serve the community.

Title of Ms Cheung Lai Wah’s speech was “Strengthening Communities through Collaboration”. She commenced her speech to describe 3 key community service needs which were poverty and economic, physical health and wellness and maternal and child care. She detailed challenges and impacts, Government approach and works carried out by non-government organisations (NGO) for each category of needs. She also discussed how Rotary can contribute towards these issues. Audience gained knowledge in community service works through Ms Cheung’s speech.

Breakout sessions of matching service partner was arranged after keynote speeches session. Nine NGOs/social enterprises were divided into four sessions to facilitate attendees to understand and interact with representatives of those organisations. Breakout 1 – Maternal and Child Health included Music Children Foundation and Sowers Action, Breakout 2 – Physical Wellness included the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society and Lok Chi Association Ltd, Breakout 3 – Vocational Service included the Salvation Army, Child Development Initiative Alliance and Run to Your Home and Breakout 4 – Community and economic development included Community CareAge and Gender Empowerment.

PP Manman Lam talked on Rotary Community Corps (RCC) after the Breakout Sessions. She outlined the background of RCC, briefed the works of a newly formed RCC – RCC of Butterfly Valley and introduced a new Facebook page to facilitate people to reach to RCC of D3450.

The fourth part of the seminar was a Panel Discussion with PDG Peter Wan and PDG Peter Pang with topic “ How Rotarians be benefited from their Rotary service experience to serve the society?”. The PDG Peter Wan and PDG Peter Pang are both professionals by profession and have both served as Chairman of other organisations namely Heep Hong Society and Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon respectively . The two Rotary leaders shared the enthusiasm and valuable experiences of serving the communities that made their life more pleasurable and fulfilled.

The fifth part was regarding Rotary Volunteer Network (RVN) hosted by PDG Andy Li. PDG Andy first introduced RVN and briefed its currently completed works an fellowships. He then facilitated with PP Eliza Ning to interview Gold Award and Silver winners of Rotary Volunteer Award 2025 namely PP Joseph Kwan from RC of Kowloon Golden Miles and PP Andrew Jones from RC of Kowloon respectively. The two winners shared their insights and experiences of serving.

The last part was showcasing projects of the top three award winners and award presentations of the Impact Maker 2025 hosted by DS Felicity Yeung. Impact Maker is a project design and pitch competition to encourage clubs to upscale service projects and co-create a bigger impact. The Champion of Impact Maker 2025 was RC of Admiralty and its project was Diabetic Foot Community Care Programme which was a project to help foot ulcer caused by diabetic patients and was presented by P S K To. The 1st runner-up was RC of the Hub HK and its project was Everyone is Beautiful and the project was a DEI project with 36 people including minorities participated to work with professional photographers, stylists, make-up artists and stylists to produce model shots, photo exhibition and fund raising would be arranged and the project was presented by P Jason Chan. The 2nd runner-up was RC of Macau Central which project was the Positive Impact of Organisation and Storage Education Mental Health presented by P Bonnie Lao. The project aimed to improve mental health for the youth and those at work, mindful living in the communities and parent-child relationships.

Eventually, the seminar ended with cheers and thrills. The Chair of Community Service Committee PDG Eugene Fong gave his Closing Remarks and hoped attendees would share the theme of the seminar – Service beyond Rotary to leverage our Rotary service experiences.