Six months ago, we took a leap of faith. In my capacity at my self-founded charity, Collective Guts HK, I signed an MOU alongside Leona Wan from ET Potential (a leading coaching school in Asia) and St. James’ Settlement (SJS). We set out to launch something we’d never attempted before: a group coaching program designed specifically for the social service sector.
Our mission was simple but profound: equip frontline staff with coaching and leadership skills so they could empower low-income families to build positive growth mindsets, develop emotional resilience, and break the cycle of cross-generational poverty.
Our focus for this pilot is SJS’s After School Care Program (課餘託管服務) – a key area of development highlighted in Hong Kong’s recent Policy Addresses to support working families.
To be completely honest, neither Leona nor I knew much about the After School Care Program when we started. We were outsiders stepping into a world we didn’t fully understand.
But we knew one crucial thing from day one: you can’t coach people using a corporate playbook built for a completely different world. So, we didn’t.
So we did something unconventional. To start with, we spent three months just listening and observing instead of lecturing. We visited schools, conducted interviews, and sat in their actual workspaces. We needed to see their day-to-day interactions with tutors, students, and parents firsthand to figure out exactly where coaching could make a real, practical difference.
Building something brand-new from scratch is hard, especially we’re coming from three different organizations, three different cultures, three different ways of thinking. The friction is inevitable.
But what holds us together is unshakeable—a shared core belief that growing people leads to better performance and better lives. Everything else is just process.
This is just the first post: I’ll be sharing more learnings, takeaways, and insights soon!
On a personal note, I really want to thank Leona Wan. When our government funding fell through last year, she didn’t walk away but stayed. Having a top-tier MCC coach commit her time and effort to this project, even lacking of budget, means a lot to me and our impact partners and the beneficiaries.
#MentalHealthHK #CollectiveGuts #SocialImpact #Coaching #GrowthMindset #EmotionalResilience #NGO #HongKong #StJamesSettlement #ETPotential #Collaboration #thankful
Collective Guts HK (NGO) 