Manoj Dhar
Manoj Dhar is the CEO of Integrated Brilliant Education Trust, where he leads Chinese language support programs for underprivileged ethnic minority children, aiming to empower them with practical life skills and integrate them into Hong Kong's social fabric. He a banking industry veteran with over 21 years of experience. Manoj is a sports enthusiast who applies his organizational expertise to develop and manage girls' teams at a premier Rugby Club in Hong Kong.
if you want a society to be sustainable and productive, the only way to achieve that is by ensuring that children are well-educated. It's as simple as that. We don't believe that dealing with young or middle-aged people who are already unemployable is the solution. Those people should be helped, of course, but in the long term, that's not the way to resolve the problem. The problem has to be addressed at its root
— Manoj Dhar
Interview transcript
Let’s start off with an introduction of yourself and you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this field?
So, my name is Manoj. I am the co-founder and CEO of Integrated Brilliant Education Limited. We set up the charity more than eight years ago and what we found was that a certain segment of the socioeconomic plane consisted of nice families and their children who were not being accommodated in a very inclusive environment in those schools. This led to their intergenerational poverty. As we all know, the way out is always education. So, we just felt that, given that this is such a wealthy city with such good results, it's a bit of a travesty that the children get victimised and we just felt the need to do a little bit with some people who have the same mindset as ours and try to help the children. These children are almost entirely non-Chinese speaking, or basically, in common language, you can call them ethnic or linguistic minorities, but they belong to the socioeconomically marginalised segment. Their parents don't have the financial wherewithal to send them to international schools, which are all very, very inclusive. So, where a child comes from, or what happens to the child, is not relevant in those schools. That's what we are and where we are here. I myself came to Hong Kong in 1999 and had been working in the banking industry all my life prior to setting up IBEL. It was an assignment that brought me here, and from then to now, Hong Kong is the place it is. It's so well-run and efficient that it tends to reward and spoil you, and then you tend to stick around. So, that is basically it. Otherwise, my country of origin is India, and my kids have grown up here and everything else.
When we first connected at One Bite, what stood out to me was your passion for the children. Unfortunately, I couldn't assist you at the time because I was no longer working with them. From your perspective, what does impact mean to you and how would you describe it?
I am an extremely firm believer of the idea that actions speak louder than words, believe that impact is something that is action-oriented. This means that it delivers action and that such action must lead to certain change, hopefully within a definitive amount of time. Additionally, some degree of social innovation is very critical. This is the entire definition of impact for us, and for me personally.
Great! How would you define and measure the positive change? Also, you mentioned the element of time. In your view, what would be a good timeframe that we should be looking at?
See, here's the thing: it's a chicken and egg situation. However, one must understand that every society has ups and downs and flaws. For a society to be consistently affected by a social ill, it takes a long time. It doesn't happen overnight; it could take 2, 3, 4, 5 years, 6, 7, 8 years, or whatever. The reason why it seeps in and then brings redress is that addressing the problem or finding a reasonable time frame should take a minimum of five years. If you look at anything, such as unemployment, hunger, poverty, or global warming, for anything to have a genuine impact, at least five years is required, as per the United Nations' 17 SDGs for 2030. While they give themselves a lot of time, it takes a while for anything to have a genuine impact. That's the timeframe that one must take into account because the healing process takes a while, and people don't realize it until it has taken hold of society. To address it, it's never going to be a small project-based approach.
In the context of your work, how do you measure impact and positive change? What methods do you use to assess the impact of your work and determine whether it has made a tangible difference?
So, for us, our line of work is very clear: if you want a society to be sustainable and productive, the only way to achieve that is by ensuring that children are well-educated. It's as simple as that. We don't believe that dealing with young or middle-aged people who are already unemployable is the solution. Those people should be helped, of course, but in the long term, that's not the way to resolve the problem. The problem has to be addressed at its root. Once the positive changes are measurable, for example, children staying in school districts, not dropping out, feeling happy, and going to school, regardless of how the school or the guardians of the Citadel behave towards them, by being non-intrusive, etc. That should not matter to them. They should get a sense of comfort, belonging, and confidence that they can study and it's not that hard, irrespective of what others say. They have it in them to succeed. For us, all those small things, like improving academic grades, feeling motivated to study, not dropping out of the schooling system, and being able to reach university, are clear indications of impact.
Yeah, that's very clear. That's very helpful to know. Drawing on your experience and expertise, can you share an example of a successful impact project in which you have participated and what made it successful?
You know, it's unfortunate that one has to draw on this, and let's hope humanity never faces this. If you look at the last three years, it's been a long enough tenure for a project to have an impact or not. Now, Hong Kong was uniquely placed or displaced because the people in Hong Kong, especially those in school, were disrupted first because of the social unrest. In December 2019, the schools and universities started closing down because the MTR was not functioning. So that was the start. After that, in February, COVID came in, and then it's been relentless. In all these years, if you look at the socially and economically marginalised segment, which is the one we're dealing with, they were already struggling with language learning abilities. Now, their schooling has come down to half a day. In fact, it was just barely 10 days ago that the local primary schools started operating. So, for three years, it's been literally half days of school, and this is when the timings or whatever months where schools are shut. You're talking about schools and online learning, but how's that happening? The parents are blue-collar workers, there's no internet, no Wi-Fi, no stable, no iPad. How's the child even going to get paper and a pencil to study? For us, that entire three-year term starting from the social unrest timeline is important because everybody says and likes to brand it as pandemic years. Hong Kong started much earlier. So, for us, this three-year project was important, and our impact was significant. We undertook Bali not at the time of the social unrest because we believed that sooner or later, it would come under control. But then, when COVID started coming in, our first priority was always how to keep our centres running. The easiest option whenever there is danger or threat coming is to get into the ostrich and put their head in the sand. But then, we would be hypocrites because the very reason why we are here is to try and help the community and the children. So, we had to keep our centres running, make our teachers and teaching staff feel safe and secure, and continue to keep the children in the educational runaround cycle so that they don't fall off. It's very easy for children to follow simple stuff. You as a child go to school, you get up at six in the morning, wear your uniform, wash your brush, and so on. All of these habits fell off the children, so they lost discipline, and they were going to lose focus. So, as a project, this was critical because we had to always innovate, pivot, and adapt to the situations. Sometimes, the MTR was shutting down.
We're here during those times. Yeah, so sometimes the MTR will shut down at 6pm. What do you do? So we had to change our schedules for the entire day. Instead of the 90-minute session we were doing with the kids, we did a one-hour session so that we could easily be home by 6pm. And normally, these days we shut up and so there was a loss of manners and lawful ability to have the teachers' rooms, but we said, "look, whatever happens, we will find a way around." Solution finding was the mantra for us. So we tried stuff like that, then we got into the situation, "hang on, now the kids don't have internet Wi-Fi to help them." So one of our donors, which happened to be UBS at that point in time (and they still are), provided us with like 30-32 iPads and our system here, and the kids could come to this centre or that centre and do all the Zoom classes, etc. from there. So it was a matter of being quick and not getting bogged down with all the problems that were constantly changing and finding a way to ensure that what we had set out to do did not get lost and we were constantly helping the kids. And that came around only because all the teachers and everybody agreed that the children were the priority. Sure, we were worried about ourselves, but beyond getting on walks in the road and somebody starting to throw stones, or empty or getting burned down or something like that, we've always found ways and means to do and work with us was that over that time, and now we only saw the number of children coming to us increase. Now there is only one way that happens. Is that true? The worst possible times, if you have the trust and respect of the mind less than 20, then they know that you're not a fair-weather friend, but someone who will stand by them in the worst of circumstances or somebody they can trust. So we saw a slow and rapid rise in the number of children who were coming to us in terms of providing. So we are an educational NGO, very clear. But if you look at our social media, it's sometimes flummoxing. I say this because a lot of our donors come and say, "but why are you distributing face masks and why are you distributing them to kids and why did you decide to give them to the parents? We saw on your Facebook and your LinkedIn that you're doing all this." You know, the child doesn't exist in isolation, they exist with the family. And if you're talking about blue-collar workers, leave the restaurant shut down or be shut up. Who do you think, what the hell are the blue-collar workers? Everybody loves their jobs. So that was our way to help them and extend our sources well beyond saying, "no, no, you know what, I'm just only going to do anything else." But to understand and appreciate that and to reach out to the person, both us to adapt and pivot that helped us grow and mature so much with the dynamic situation, but it wasn't a progressive dynamic situation. So yeah, those are the various things and various initiatives that we wouldn't have been able to find in terms of time reacting. Or, let's say proactive, being proactive and not being reactive. So that's basically what it is.
Were there any hard decisions that you needed to make during that time?
The teachers were scared. You read about the news, the third wave of COVID. Many of them are frightened and don't show up. And it's not like we're paying them million-dollar salaries. We pay them what we can afford. But at the end of the day, we're a charity and money isn't really an incentive. We understand their concern.
I understand their concern, but I'm concerned about the opportunity. How do we continue to support the children? At some points in time, it's difficult for us to figure out how to increase the number of patches and reduce the number of children. Then there's the situation of social distancing within one room space. You cannot have more than eight, but the centre can accommodate 36. So with social distancing, you might not have more than five or six children at any given project.
So we had to reduce the number of matches. Maybe we should start earlier. Those were hard decisions. We had to spend a lot of time with the teachers trying to keep them motivated. Saying that, not everyone is as fair as possible.
So that's a priority, and that's why my decision was made. Sometimes when there's a method to the madness like that, they would like so many multiples. For example, we started to build up donors who are giving us cooking oil, rice, and so forth. Our staff said, "Why are we doing this?" It's for the child. The father has lost his job, and then obviously there are issues with how they sustain themselves. So again, one of the decisions we had was that all women should bring their children to us. It's pretty awesome that the academic input is the minimum for that. We charge them around $7, which by Hong Kong standards is literally nothing.
Now, that plus the amount of highly certain fees. Or, whatever you may recall, we also take them out and about schools for educational trips and cultural trips. So it reached a point in time where we sat down and more parents communicated. Both of us kept coming in at the same rate, robbing and becoming victims of what was happening. We were all losing our jobs. At that point in time, you can't keep telling them that we're already getting highly subsidised very early, so please contribute because they're hurt. So we have to take the hassle out. All right, let's say that. For me, it's important that you come every day and get a sandwich, but what's not acceptable to me is that your child doesn't come. So those are hard decisions because those small fees help us pay our rent. We pay commercial rent here. Yeah, so it's not free. We had to do that bit of balancing — we shouldn't go into the red because I can't do what I wanted to do. So those were the times with a lot of emotional resistance while considering the hard financial discipline.
It seems like you can tap into communities to amplify the impact. Can you share a bit about your collaborators? I'm interested to know if you do any community outreach and if you have a sponsor. Who are the collaborators you're working with?
In terms of segmenting our agents, we aim to attract those who fund us to sustain our operations and balance sheet. We also have volunteers and partners, including universities, local schools, and individuals who provide answers for our children. Additionally, we have physical and mental health partners who offer opportunities for our children to engage in activities, such as the Hong Kong video. However, in the past three years, Hong Kong children have gained weight and developed myopia due to the lack of physical activity caused by school closures. This is why our partners (The Hong Kong Rugby Union Community Foundation (HKRUCF), Valley Foundation, Kowloon Cricket Club ) constantly organize various sporting activities to combat these issues. We find open spaces where landlords allow us to operate. Families who can afford to send their children to clubs benefit from these opportunities. These are our second group of partners. Lastly, we have media partners, both English and Chinese, who engage with us and appreciate the work we do.
How do the educational partners (universities and international schools) get involved?
So for example, if you look at last year, what's the university for children who are starting to see who are going to become teachers or fields that are of interest to science and math? If the university exam planning becomes detailed, then we do much rather than develop the intelligence that just sort of said, rather than get into the school, and become a teacher and say, "You know what, you don't look like me?" Because you're the one you're wanting or not. Yeah, that doesn't come out in them because then there comes in the form it is from our children's perspective.
Yes, my mom works in restaurants, so I feel like trying to get into university may not be the best option for me and my kids. However, they do want to go to university. Recently, they attended a […] workshop and were inspired by the […]. They came back from the workshop feeling motivated and innovative. When they go to school, they participate in a national program for children, and they are also learning English as a second language. Unfortunately, they have allergies, which can make it difficult for them to socialize. Despite this, I am grateful that they are able to attend school and have these opportunities.
→ inspiring kids to think outside of their usual environment.
If Manoj had a magic wand, he wished he could access unrestricted Funding and have Consistent Multi-year Funding. Funding for admin and rent for the centre is critical for their operations for a grassroot NGO like theirs. Criticised investors wanting to fund something that’s new and shiny but not necessarily with the most impact.