In Unity, Get Set, Ready to Go! Storing up "Vitamin C" , Building up Resilience, Breaking through Adversities

The Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) and the Labour Department (LD) jointly hosted a press conference on 18 March to announce the results of the 14th batch of applications. The conference received extensive media coverage, including TVB Pearl, ATV, RTHK, Commercial Radio, SCMP, Apple Daily, Ming Pao, am730, Oriental Daily, HK Economic Times, Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Pao, HK Economic Journal and HK Commercial Daily. There was considerable interest in the LD-CIIF joint initiatives to promote the employability of disadvantaged youth and to enhance the resilience of middle-class families and communities most affected by the recent financial tsunami. Click here to download press release of the conference.

The 20 projects approved during this batch were considered most timely to help build community resilience and regain confidence. Among these 20 projects, 6 will be jointly funded by the CIIF and LD with the aim of applying social capital strategies to raise motivation, build capacity, and enhance employability of youth in disadvantaged situations. The other 14 projects are focused on supporting social capital development in neighbourhoods. Three of these projects will specifically target middle class families and neighbourhoods to create the platform for their community engagement and contribution and encourage the development of cross-strata mutual help networks.

The 20 project teams joined the press conference and demonstrated their commitment and enthusiasm to launch their projects, and to jointly build up the much-needed "Vitamin Cs" – raising confidence through collaborations into the community. In unity, they will jointly enhance community resilience to counter the current adversities.

The CIIF is inviting proposals for 15th batch of application with the theme of "Power of Resilience at times of Adversity". The CIIF encourages applicants to put forward innovative proposals to build cross-strata mutual help platforms to engage middle-class families and communities to jointly build up their resilience. Click here to download application form.

A workshop will be held to announce details of the next round of applications. Please check out our website for further information.