A professor with a medical background starting a social enterprise is undoubtedly a new challenge. “I’m very bad with numbers, and I only get to know business lingo such as B2C, B2B, P&L and so on when I actually started this business. I have no idea how much revenue to aim at then. Now I know that I have to turn over $2M next year — it’s an astronomical amount to me!” For the social enterprise to balance the books, Kathy recognises the importance of seizing every opportunity for the company to survive and thrive.
The 6 co-founders of Speech & Hearing — Kathy, Iris Ng, Thomas Law, Valerie Pereira, Wilson Yu and Kelvin Chan. The social enterprise is now run by a team of 5 — Wilson , Kathy, Thomas, and 2 part-time administrators Sam Ng and Keely Yau. The most daunting tasks of accounts and administration are in the good hands of an incredible team, including a colleague whom Kathy has known for over 20 years. Their sense of responsibility makes Kathy at ease.
The logo of Speech and Hearing is the personification of the alphabets “S” and “H” to exemplify its people-oriented values.
Kathy believes in the power of listening, “Our ideas do not always tally. But one good thing is that we never go emotional, and we discuss rationally. A lot of times towards the end of the discussion, I give up my own ideas despite that I think mine is better as most of the team choose otherwise. A collective brain is better than just the brain of mine. After all we have blind spots.”
How to benefit mutually?
Speech and Hearing Social Enterprise (SHSE) provides professional training to enhance professional standards in speech therapy, and educational seminars for the general public to increase public awareness on different communication disorders. Altogether these activities will enable the community to accommodate and understand the communication disorder population, and will lead to social integration.
SHSE also benefits the public through multimedia content on platforms like YouTube. CUHK Division of Speech Therapy and Speech and Hearing jointly produced a series of “5-minute Oroeasy” videos for elderlies to practice any time anywhere.
SHSE shared their research and development results to professionals in Macau. They introduced the “Hong Kong Cantonese Language Assessment Scale for Preschool Children (HKCLASS-P)” to Macao Association of Speech Therapists at a seminar last year and provided training for participants. The team explicated how the assessment scale was developed and shared cases for participants to learn to use the manual with evaluation forms and record forms.
