Closing the gender gap: 1,500 Hong Kong girls to receive financial literacy training, career support under scheme for pupils from low-income, minority backgrounds

About 1,500 teenage girls in Hong Kong will receive training to improve their financial literacy skills and encouragement to develop a career in the sector under a pilot project spearheaded by the local chapter of a UK-based international charity group.

Inspiring Girls Hong Kong aims to empower secondary pupils from low-income backgrounds and ethnic minority communities in their career development journey under the “EmpowerHer Future: Girls Social Mobility” project.

Funding from UBS, donated via Operation Santa Claus (OSC), an annual charity drive co-organised by the South China Morning Post and public broadcaster RTHK since 1988, will provide seed money for the initiative.

The project launching in January will provide career counselling and financial literacy training to pupils aged 16 to 18.

Founded in 2021, the local chapter already connects teenage girls with women role models across an array of industries, including those dominated by men, helping them overcome stereotypes about what careers women can pursue and excel in.

Ines Gafsi, director and chair of the local chapter, said introducing young girls to such women was important to tackle the gender imbalance in many fields, citing reports that showed women only made up 20 per cent of fund managers and 29 per cent of management positions in the city’s finance sector.

“There’s still a big gender gap worldwide,” Gafsi said. “We know that to close the gender gap, we need to have role models for girls who are female, and what we observe from our programme is once a girl hears from a role model who is female in that space, she’s actually twice as likely to consider a career in that particular industry.”