Z Zurich Foundation Pledges Over HKD8 million Funding to Breakthrough To Help Youngsters Release Creativity and Explore New Career Paths

Hong Kong, August 12, 2018 – In a bid to encourage youngsters to deal with the rapidly changing society in a positive manner—seeking challenges, igniting their creativity and improving their soft skill—to become a creative citizen in a diverse society and to explore new paths away from traditional careers, Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) (“Zurich”) announced today Z Zurich Foundation pledged its full support to the two flagship projects hosted by Breakthrough, namely “MineCity” and “Trial and Error Lab HK,” by providing funding of more than HKD8 million over the coming three years. Mr. Eric Hui, CEO of Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) has also joined youngsters in their community exploration tour, gaining personal experience about people’s lives in Sham Shui Po and witnessing the youngsters’ first step in community problem-solving and developing their potential.

Noted Mr. Hui, “In an ever-changing society in this hi-tech era, job skill requirements are increasingly strict that youngsters can no longer acquire a job they favor by merely being hard-working. To ensure the sustainable and diversified development of the entire society, imagination and creativity have grown indispensable. In recent years, many voices have been raised calling for the empowerment of youngsters so that they can participate in community building and development and share the credit. We believe that in this way we can help youngsters make their breakthroughs, learning from errors and failures and starting over in spite of adversities and setbacks.”

“MineCity” includes activities such as community exploration tours, Minecraft software applications and workshop for community map production. The activities aim to encourage youngsters to go into communities and discover stories within, then produce community maps with the help of Minecraft software in a passionate and creative way, and express through the maps their ideas about future communities, where problems of different stakeholders will be looked into and different community groups will get along with one another.

“My son is a Minecraft player, so I do know something about the software,” said Mr. Hui, “Breakthrough puts into practice its idea of youth development by gamification of learning and with it narrowing the gap between youngsters and the community, which is hard to come by indeed. From my personal engagement in MineCity’s Sham Shui Po tour, I find that youngsters are enthusiastic and active in taking up community tasks, and are willing to feel the pace of life in old communities and gain understanding of local cultures. Local residents are also talkative and friendly, making it easy for the youngsters to openly express themselves.”

The other flagship project “Trial and Error Lab HK” provides vocational development service to youngsters aiming to broaden their spectrum of vocation and help them explore more diverse career possibilities and build skills and confidence through trials and learning. Breakthrough provides co-working spaces, training workshops, relevant industry and stakeholder networks and sharing sessions on different types of creative enterprise planning, which enable youngsters to hone their skills, develop new products or have a try on business start-up planning. The project is expected to arouse youngsters’ interest and potential in the fields of technology, design and media, helping them develop their sustainable career in the future and collectively form a brave new force in the culturally creative industry.

“Zurich has always been committed to ensuring our customers a sustainable future,” Mr. Hui stressed, but adding that “the new era is fraught with highly complicated and harsh challenges. The Breakthrough projects give more space for youngsters to experiment, to confront failures and to test new outlets and possibilities. The idea bears great significance and goes along completely with the mission of Zurich, and that’s why we decide to lend our support. In this way, we can fulfil our corporate social responsibility and make our contribution to the local communities as well.”

“Breakthrough believes that with appropriate coaching, youngsters will dominate Hong Kong’s future with their vitality, creativity and ability of action, which happens to coincide with the view of Zurich Insurance,” said Ms. Man Lok Yan, General Secretary of Breakthrough, “We extend our heartfelt thanks to Zurich who, for the recognition of the youngsters’ potential and the idea of Breakthrough, promises to provide financial support over the coming three years, joining forces with us to broaden the room of development for youngsters and to encourage them to bring more novel imaginations and possibilities to our city.”

- End -