Page 11 - Sphere No.6 (Jun 2002)

S PHERE
9
W HAT COULD YOU DO
with HK$4.5 billion? Few
individuals have that sort of
spending power, but that’s the sum Li
Ka-shing has invested over the past 22
years in helping other people.
Better known for his gift of turning a
profit, this is how Mr Li chooses to
spend much of it.
The money has funded education,
medicine, culture and welfare.The ben-
efits have been so widespread and so
profound they’re more difficult to calcu-
late than the cash itself. It’s impossible to
quantify the impact on thousands of
individuals who have benefited from a
better education, improved health and
cultural upliftment.
In March this year, the Foundation
launched a website, in Chinese and
English, to keep the public abreast of its
activities and to increase society’s
awareness of the importance of helping
others.
There is much of interest on this
easy-to-navigate site. Visitors can learn
more about the Foundation – its mis-
sion and objectives, the details of its
many projects, and pictures relating to
the projects.
The website also gives a glimpse of
the man behind the tycoon, offering
insights into the forces that shaped a
philosophy underpinned by high regard
for learning and a relentless drive to
help others. Mr Li is shown in casual
attitude. Interviews, articles and video
clips of a 1998 RTHK documentary tell
his life story, beginning with his difficult
formative years in rural China
and charting the progress of his
extraordinary career.
Mr Li himself never had the opportu-
nity to receive a formal education. Being
a voracious reader, he is largely self-
taught. He considers education to be
the single most vital resource of society
and he has spared no effort to make
education more accessible.
The website offers fascinating
footage of an award-winning documen-
tary film that Mr Li helped finance, enti-
tled Knowledge Changes Fate, made by
renowned Mainland director Gu
Chang-wei. Featuring some 40 individ-
uals whose lives improved as a result of
the education they received, the film
received an overwhelming response,
inspiring people throughout Hong
Kong and the Mainland to embrace life-
long learning.
Browsers can learn more about
scores of other interesting and useful
projects funded by the Foundation,
which has some remarkable success
stories of its own. One of the largest
and most successful education projects,
for example, has been Shantou
University, which has received some
HK$2 billion from the Foundation and
which has already produced some
20,000 graduates.
The Li Ka Shing Foundation is the
only “business interest” of Mr Li’s that
consistently fails to produce a financial
return. But there’s a pervading sense
that of all Mr Li’s investments this is the
one he values most.
For details of the many projects sup-
ported by the Li Ka Shing Foundation, as
well as a personal look at the names and
faces behind the numbers, log on to
www.lksf.org.Readers are also invited to
write to the Foundation via the website.
set up a listening and language recovery
technical school.
Twelve provinces in the mid-west
regions of China will benefit from
schools for the blind. Three thousand
teachers will be trained to educate blind
children with the aim of raising their
school enrolment rate to 80% from the
current 40%. More than 25,000 children
will be offered financial aid and 35,000
blind people will be trained as masseurs.
In total, almost 15 million people
will benefit from the establishment of
service centres for the disabled in 664
underdeveloped prefectures.
Individual stories of hope can easily
be submerged in statistics, given the scale
of the Li Ka Shing Foundation’s influ-
ence. There are many more like Tian
Nan, who has learned to talk, and Zhang
Jing, who can walk again. For Mr Li, the
greatest satisfaction comes from know-
ing that behind each figure on the
Foundation’s spreadsheet is a tale of a life
changed for the better.
–With reporting by Tao Siu Tip
Everyone needs a helping hand at some point
in their lives and the Li Ka Shing Foundation goes
to great lengths to reach out to less fortunate
members of the community.
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