Civic Exchange

Soap Cycling Limited

Soap Cycling is a non-profit organization based in Hong Kong that provides recycled soap to NGOs/charities for hygiene and sanitation projects throughout Asia. Mission We at Soap Cycling have a three-part mission: 1. Sanitation and Hygiene We aim to improve sanitation and hygiene in underprivileged regions, with a particular emphasis on reducing child mortality rates. Pneumonia and dysentery are the leading causes of death for children under the age of five. In fact, pneumonia alone kills more children every year than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Despite the rapid economic growth in much of the Asia-Pacific region, more than a third of under age five deaths can be attributed directly or indirectly to pneumonia and dysentery. Studies have shown that simply washing hands with soap is one of the most effective ways to prevent children from suffering from these diseases. So we were faced with a question: If soap is the most effective way to save children, how can we get soap into their hands? The answer appeared when we realized hotels in Asia discard millions of soap bars each day! All we have to do is collect it and reprocess it so it can be used to save thousands of children each year. 2. Green Living and Waste Reduction We estimate that over two million bars of soap are thrown away each year by hotels in Hong Kong. By collecting this soap, Soap Cycling is helping to eliminate thousands of chemical waste pounds from our landfills each month. We hope that public awareness will increase towards the concept of up-cycling and develop a greener lifestyle for the betterment of the environment. 3. Education Soap Cycling focuses on education in the following two major ways. 3(a). Sanitation Education Soap can only combat disease if it is utilized properly. So we consider one of our most important missions is to help educate children about the importance of proper hygiene, the dangers from germs, and proper hand washing techniques. By doing this in partnership with families and schools, we hope to promote permanent change in student attitudes and behaviors, thereby ensuring that the benefits from Soap Cycling projects will continue long after our donated soap is gone. 3(b). University Leadership Education We have intentionally structured our organization to allow university students and other young people to hold positions of authority and responsibility. We hope to help students break free from authoritarian educational structures and to allow them to think critically and creatively. We feel we have provided students with the perfect platform to gain hands-on experience in managing and operating an organization. They are given the opportunity to meet external parties, discuss legal issues, develop strategy, and much more. Most importantly, it ensures that they are infused with an appreciation for corporate social responsibility, social enterprise, and the importance of ethical business roles in society.

Animals Asia Foundation Limited

Animals Asia is devoted to ending bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals across Asia. We promote compassion and respect for all animals and work to bring about long-term change.

Earth.Org Limited

Earth.Org is a not-for-profit environmental organisation based in Hong Kong. Our aim is to bring attention to what is happening to natural ecosystems worldwide. We advocate for sustainable economic policies, for the protection of the natural environment and an extension of governance or oversight to cover the global commons. Impact and Reach As an Environmental News & Data Platform, we aim to illustrate the repercussions of climate change on the human habitat with power data journalism using web and social media to reach global audiences. By extracting powerful insights from data and making this understandable for a wide audience, even for kids, we bring climate change science alive and reach new audiences. Our aim – to be ‘the BBC of environmental news’. What we do makes a real difference. We are fighting for climate justice and action. We are helping Conservation NGOs and to safeguard wildlife – including endangered species – from threats such as habitat loss and poaching. We are working hard to educate and inform diverse audiences, in order to overcome temporal conceptualisation difficulties and the issue of ‘baseline shifting’. But we can’t do it alone: our successes are only possible due to our volunteers, partners, readers and the generosity of our supporters.