“We wanted to help different fields come up. We felt the smaller grassroots projects were being neglected”

- Mr Robert H. N. Ho, Founder

In Hong Kong, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation’s home town, an array of dynamic and thought-provoking arts and cultural projects are supported. These range from programmes organised with some of the city’s most established artistic groups and administrative bodies, such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong government’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department (conservator US exchange programme), to enterprising activities run by smaller organisations that find novel ways to examine residents’ relationship to their city’s history and culture, or to explore the creative power of the arts in business-oriented, pragmatic Hong Kong.

In both arenas, the Foundation’s focus is to provide opportunities to enhance appreciation of the arts, extend awareness of the arts’ ability to transcend the everyday, and provide openings for people to actual experience how creativity can impact self-development.

Appreciating and experiencing

Projects for young and old, parents and children are funded to foster talent at different stages of life and show the arts can reach out to and involve everyone. One ground-breaking activity, launched in 2009, was Leap!, Hong Kong’s first large-scale movement education programme for nursery school children between the ages of four and six. This was offered together with Cloud Gate Dance School of Taiwan and sought to utilise dance as a teaching medium to ignite youngsters’ innate creativity rather than train professional dancers. Over the years it has reached thousands of children in Hong Kong.

“The strategy for realising the Foundation’s goals in the arts in Hong Kong is constantly evolving as different ways of getting involved in the local arena are explored,” Mr Ted Lipman, Chief Executive Officer, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, said.

Through “Arts: Transforming Hong Kong”, another wide-reaching initiative launched in 2013, the Foundation provides grants for community-based projects that bring artists together with other groups - especially marginalised sections of Hong Kong and students. The groups work together to increase engagement, preserve collective memory and strengthen cultural heritage.

Extending and preserving

Other Foundation grant-making enables local organisations to reach outside Hong Kong. The Design and Cultural Studies Workshop in Hong Kong has collaborated with the Foundation since 2008 on a series of award-winning publications and displays entitled We All Live in the Forbidden City. This project seeks to widen knowledge of life in China’s imperial home to 24 emperors. It includes books published using traditional characters and simplified Chinese characters, English and other languages, a 100-episode documentary series, and an education outreach programme. We All Live in the Forbidden City activities have taken place in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Foundation has also helped to introduce young audience in and outside Hong Kong to Kun Opera, among the oldest forms of traditional Chinese opera and listed among UNESCO’s “masterpieces of the oral and intangible cultural heritage of humanity”. In 2008, the Foundation supported performances and lectures by Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre of Jiangsu and Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe for university and secondary school students in Hong Kong, together with the University of Hong Kong. A sponsored Kunqu Tour to Taiwan took place in 2009. In addition to performances, actors provided a series of talks for students and members of the public.

One that got away…

A major project that Mr Ho would like to have been involved in was the revitalisation of the historic Central Police Station, Victoria Prison and Central Magistracy complex in the heart of the Central area of Hong Kong Island.

This held particular resonance for the Ho family, given its deep connections with Hong Kong’s history. Mr Ho’s grandfather, Sir Robert Ho Tung, was born in the city in 1862, just two decades after it started to become an east-west hub. Sir Robert was one of the first generation of “Hong Kongers”, those who identify themselves with the city and its development. As a history enthusiast, Mr Ho was also keen to preserve the fascinating story of Victoria Prison building and the many who stayed there, including Vietnam’s revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. “After the British arrived, the first thing they did was put up the flag,” Mr Ho said. “The second thing they did was build a jail!”

A proposal was put together in the early years of the new millennium, with the support of several other Hong Kong families and the University of Hong Kong. But it was not to be. In the end, the Hong Kong government decided to proceed with the project as a partnership between itself and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. “You can’t win them all!” Mr Ho said.