Empowerment for a Dignified Life - Visit to Dignity Kitchen

V’air recently joined WEDO GLOBAL, a social enterprise dedicated to advocating multicultural education, to pay a visit to a social enterprise food court called Dignity Kitchen Hong Kong at 618 Shanghai Street. Through chatting with the founder and his employees, we got to know the inspiration behind this social enterprise and the social impact it has brought to Hong Kong.

Originally from Singapore, Dignity Kitchen expanded its business of selling Singapore hawker food to Hong Kong. As the social enterprise aims to restore the dignity of the disadvantaged and disabled through empowerment at work, more than fifty job vacancies are therefore made available to people who live with physical or mental health issues. Each employee would first undergo a series of training to become experts in different cuisines, such as becoming a professional baker specialising in making pandan chiffon cake. By authorising employees to manage their designated hawker stall, it empowers them to be their own managers. This sense of autonomy also helps create a welcoming climate for healthy competition between stalls that motivates employees to learn and strive for improvement.

On top of that, Dignity Kitchen also offers a Pay-It-Forward scheme, which lets customers buy an extra meal to feed others through purchasing coupons. These purchased meals will then be distributed to low-income elderly folks and homeless people in the community, also done by the kitchen employees. From receiving help to giving help, it is no surprise that the employees of Dignity Kitchen hold such passion and enthusiasm for their professions. Recently, the restaurant opened a secondhand bookstore called Dignity Mama. The shop is run by the mothers of the Dignity Kitchen employees, so as to help the mothers feel more at ease with their children at work next door.

One of the most frequently asked questions about Dignity Kitchen is why would a Singaporean come to help the disadvantaged and disabled people in Hong Kong, to which the founder replied that the purpose is not to help Hong Kong people but only to help people. Deeply inspired by Dignity Kitchen, V’air is now even more determined to continue the work that we do in promoting youth initiative and environmental education. At the moment, we are in the process of working with Dignity Kitchen and WEDO to organize ecotours for disabled people and ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Below are the ways we can support Dignity Kitchen:

1. Dine at their restaurant and purchase their Pay-it-Foward coupons (food quality is guaranteed!)
2. Communicate with employees when dining at the restaurant. Easy instructions on basic sign language are available at the stalls managed by deaf or other nonverbal users of sign language
3. Donate second-hand books in good condition to Dignity Mama
4. The owner of Dignity Kitchen is currently seeking to hire creative and patient young people for marketing. If you’re social media savvy, please don’t hesitate to contact the organization!