Our Stories

Building a better future for children

Many of our colleagues have been long-term supporters of the Cambodian Children's Fund(CCF), a nonprofit organization that transforms Cambodia's most impoverished kids into tomorrow's leaders in Phnom Penh.

After personally getting to know the work of the Cambodian Children's Fund, one of our senior leaders, Eric Leddel, galvanized other senior leaders and colleagues in the company to go on a 3-day volunteering trip to share skills and find ways build sustainable impact with CCF. Since then, Eric's passion has inspired others to get involved with CCF, with colleagues collaborating with CCF to develop a leadership curriculum and organizing workshops on design thinking, public speaking and leadership, and even prompting vendors to donate much-needed in-kind goods such as children’s clothing and studying materials to the organization.

Cleaning up our world

At Li & Fung, we encourage colleagues to build awareness of environmental issues and to take action to care for our environment. Our Clean Up Our World campaign has been running for seven years. Colleagues worldwide help to raise awareness, improve the environment and clean up their communities, including beaches, waterways, shorelines, parks, trails, mountains, and cities.

This year, we introduced the RETHINK Challenge, a campaign which included not only our colleagues but also the public, challenging everyone to stop using single use and disposable containers for 1 week. Through this challenge people from over 24 countries and territories pledged to ditch single use and disposable plastics and opt for more sustainable alternatives. This ended up being an educational experience and RETHINKERS developed sustainable habits that would continue long after the challenge.

One participant from the UK commented "I have become more aware of how much waste I create and how much I can avoid!"

Recycling soap, saving lives

Hotels across Asia dispose of millions of bars of soap each day, while children in the developing world die from largely preventable diseases, many of which could be drastically reduced through the simple practice of hand-washing.

In our biggest team volunteering activity to date, more than 150 colleagues spent an afternoon with Soap Cycling (a Hong Kong non-profit dedicated to recycling previously used soap from hotels and redistributing it to those who need it most), to clean a whopping 350kg of soap, enough to supply 800 kids in the Philippines for a whole year. Our relationship with Soap Cycling has continued, and 500+ colleagues across Hong Kong and Mainland China have volunteered over 1,200 hours since 2016.

Celebrating differences through surfing

For the third year in a row, our colleagues celebrated the life and memory of our former colleague Ken Whalen, by helping to host the annual Ken Whalen Surf Challenge. The event is focused on providing inclusion and access to sports for kids of all abilities, and raising critical funds for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. In 2017, the event drew over 250 kids and physically challenged athletes to participate in this fun surfing competition!

Distributing winter clothing

For the past six years, our colleagues in Bangladesh have visited Gaibandha, one of the coldest regions in Bangladesh, to distribute winter clothes to low income families in the community. With the help of local NGO the SKS Foundation, every year LF Ccolleagues travel more than 288 kmkilometres to support 2 rural villages in the community, providing warm clothes and blankets to 3,000 community members.

Raising awareness for women’s health

Li & Fung has been a long-term supporter of women’s health awareness. Our colleagues promote the importance of regular checkups for early detection and the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits to help decrease the risk of disease.

Every October, colleagues participate in Women’s Health Awareness Month by raising awareness and funds through seminars, checkups, information sharing and our global Dress Pink Day. In some markets, workers, corporate partners and friends and families join us.

Investing in people

In our Bangladesh office, a number of contract cleaners are young men under the age of 25 who often come from disadvantaged communities. Our colleagues there developed a curriculum to help them improve their English and teach them general information about our business, etiquette, health and safety and life skills to open up opportunities including completing their education and gaining work prospects.

Empowering girls to reach their potential

In Qinghai China, nomadic tribal beliefs are deep-rooted and being born a girl is widely considered to be penance for wrongdoings in a previous life. Many girls are orphaned or abandoned and end up in poor conditions where they are badly treated. Even though education is available for many of them it is not a realistic option.

Over US$272,560 has been raised by Li & Fung colleagues, including matching from the Foundation, to support a brighter future for girls at the Seng Girls Vocational Training School.