Here comes the last week of our “We’re All in This Together” local hero nomination campaign! We are delighted to announce that the last local hero goes to Manoj Dhar, the founder of Integrated Brilliant EducaTion (IBET) who provides academic inputs, with special emphasis on Chinese language learning for non-Chinese speaking children in Hong Kong.

It has been over 20 years since the banking industry brought Manoj Dhar to Hong Kong. Taking immense pride in being a Hong Konger, he used this sentiment as a motivation to give back to the community that has given him so much. Noticing a critical need for educational support and empowerment for Hong Kong's marginalised and financially challenged non-Chinese speaking children, Manoj founded the charity, Integrated Brilliant EducaTion (IBET), with his wife Geetanjali in 2015. The charity, consisting of two education centres in Jordan and Cheung Sha Wan, runs after-school classes daily from Monday to Saturday that support 200+ students each month, with the aim of facilitating those overlooked non-Chinese children into Hong Kong's social fabric by providing them with various culturally immersive opportunities. 

Manoj and his team have shown remarkable resilience and fortitude to keep the centres fully operational throughout the challenging past few months. At a time when schools were shut for more than four months, the IBET team remained determined to prevent any further academic marginalisation or isolation of these children. As such, they continued to provide academic guidance, as well as access to digital learning support to their students. On top of that, Manoj was regularly seen distributing masks to his students and their families. 

With the support of the Hong Kong Rugby Union and The Ngai Family Foundation, IBET recently held its 5th Annual Sports Day. Encouraging students to lead an active and healthy lifestyle by providing them with such sporting opportunities has always been quintessential to Manoj’s mission and ambitions. This passion can also be witnessed in Manoj’s spare time, where, in his volunteer capacity as Manager and Tournament Director, he has been extensively involved in encouraging and developing Girls’ Rugby for over a decade.

With the economy in Hong Kong being adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of children's parents have been either laid off or are on reduced pay, thereby making it difficult for them to even afford IBET’s highly subsidised fees. To enable these children to continue their education, IBET has been doing all they can to reduce costs, but cannot sustain this effort without additional funds. Click here to support IBET and help them keep the lights on for these children!