Nan Fung Group builds the city's resilience through community programme

Nan Fung Group has launched a community initiative that engages the society on culture and arts, social design and sustainable development.

The initiative "In Time Of" is aimed at strengthening social engagement within local communities, enhancing cultural interaction and appreciation, building a unique social heritage, and cultivating environmental and community awareness under three core pillars: sustainability, social design, and culture and arts.

The programme curates a wide range of activities including exhibitions, seminars, workshops, and guided tours by collaborating with multi-stakeholders in the community, aspiring to empower locals with the goals of accumulating social capital in the neighbourhood, advocating sustainability and reshaping a continuous relationship that bridges humanity and nature.

The "In Time Of" team collaborates with social design studio One Bite, social enterprise JUPYEAH, environmental conservation organisation The Conservancy Association, and some other social groups including The House of Hong Kong Literature and the Sangwoodgoon Kids Club to launch a series of public activities to connect the community by using recycling concepts, literature, history, culture, and plants as mediums.

The first of three episodes, "In Time of Tree", includes a programme at San Po Kong that encourages the public to explore the relationship between nature and urban development with hands-on experiences. With a special focus on promoting a sustainable culture and developing an integrated neighbourhood mutual-aid network, Nan Fung Group worked with JUPYEAH to establish a school programme to help students understand the value of a sharing community. A community swap event will be held under the guidance of JUPYEAH to provide experiences for participants.

This episode, aimed at empowering students to become local ambassadors and encourage NGOs to organise activities to develop a sustainable sharing eco-system that delivers lasting benefits to the community’s economy, also encourages urban greening and hopes to strengthen neighbourhood connections through planting. It will partner with the Sustainable Ecological Ethical Development Foundation to organise two online Social Design x Community Planting workshops.

A plant exchange event will be held to enable participants to build up positive neighbourhood relationships by taking care of each other’s plants. Extra plants designed by students will also be displayed outside 10 shops in San Po Kong to create unique decorations and develop a linkage between residences and the community alongside One Bite Design’s interactive social consultation on discovering further community planting activities.

From March to May 2021, Nan Fung Group will launch the second episode "In Time of Arts and Culture – 'Nice To Meet You, Kapok!'" at The Mills, Tsuen Wan. The Mills will partner with local environmental conservation organisation The Conservancy Association, illustrator Connie Maoshan, natural dye collaborator Beely Daily, local printmaker artist Lam King-ting, and an artistic sketch team formed by a group of urban sketchers called Wa Ha Yeah.

This collaborative group will create a series of art and cultural activities under the themes of clothing, food, living and walking, hoping to educate audiences about the history, usage and development of kapok trees through exhibitions, interactive handicraft workshops, guided tours, and production of the community’s Kapok Map.

The third episode "Manhole Cover Exhibition" will take place at Nan Fung Place, Sheung Wan, working with The Conservancy Association Centre for Heritage to showcase manhole covers' designs, materials, and production technology that have witnessed the century-old development of Hong Kong's pig iron casting industry and the evolution of public works. 

The exhibition will also showcase different manhole covers from around Sheung Wan and introduce local foundries and craftsmen as well as the manufacturing process of making manhole covers, allowing participants to discover the history and industrial stories of Hong Kong from the most common urban landscapes in the city that are rarely explored.

Lastly, they can also learn more about the historical traces of Hong Kong’s urban development by interpreting the information on the manhole covers. They can discover how the city has been developed through different kinds of infrastructure to effectively use natural resources in our daily lives and brainstorm how urban design in the future can be improved and integrated into our lives.

“Nan Fung Group has always been committed to building for, and with, our communities to co-create a more sustainable future. In recent years, the concept of resilient cities has been growing in importance across the globe, and it has inspired us to establish the programme," said Vanessa Cheung, group managing director of Nan Fung Development.

"We hope to create a platform contributing to the long-term socio-cultural development of Hong Kong. We will also continuously be on the lookout for any unattended needs of different social stakeholders and will strike to channel the collective resources with other partnering companies to support the community," she added.

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