Community Spotlight: Alice Tam, University Student

Curious about what volunteerism and Time Auction events are all about? Meet our community who has shared their memorable experiences in their volunteering journey and meetings with our featured guests!

Meet Alice Tam!

“Go beyond your limits.”

Alice is currently a final year student at the University of Hong Kong, majoring in Spanish and Geography. She will be pursuing a career in the business field upon graduation. Her journey with volunteering started when she was in secondary school, and whilst she was told to focus on her studies, she had conducted different volunteer work in multiple areas like beach cleaning, food recycling, visiting the homeless, and free tutoring services. At University, she participated in some other volunteering projects, some of the memorable ones including one with the ACSVAW (Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women), in which her team did an advocacy campaign by investigating on the sexual harassment blackspots in MTR stations, as well as one volunteering overseas English teaching camp organised by Voltra, a Hong Kong service trip provider.

Finding her focus in volunteering

In the summer of 2019, she founded Connextiar, a student NGO group with a focus on serving the non-Chinese speaking community in Hong Kong. The group aims to provide peer sharing and mentorship to whoever is interested to connect and collaborate. The group is still in its infancy stage and they will try to work on it as a team.

“Life is not a straight line. There are twists and turns along the way.”

Her most memorable volunteer experience?

Her most memorable volunteer experience was with the advocacy campaign with ACSVAW. Alice met an admirable volunteer who had an inherited disease and was still contributing substantially to the completion of the campaign. She also met the founder of IBET(Integrated Brilliant Education Trust) in another occasion, that offers free Chinese tutorial lessons to the non-Chinese community and the person has been running the group for number of years. From the both of them, Alice learnt a lot about the importance of doing things beyonds one’s gain and persevering with the clause.

“Volunteering journey really pays off for me. I learned a lot from the people around me.”

What did Alice learn from Time Auction experiences?

Alice’s journey with volunteering offers her empowering experience and insights to further herself as a person and to build her confidence. Her time spent with Time Auction inspired her to start her own student group. When asked which speakers resonated with her, she cited Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia for his passion in art, and Norma Chu, Founder of DayDayCook for her entrepreneurial spirit in pursuing her dream.

““I like the quote, “Sloth is a virtue”. I sometimes find it myself tensing up for my work without myself realising. Knowing the right moment to relax and reflect have been important to me.”

Alice was particularly impressed by Damien Mooney, Head of Aladdin Wealth Tech at Asia Pacific at Blackrock. She felt that he was very forthcoming with open-mindedness, and told her to “embrace challenges”. Her experience with Time Auction, she believes, is unrivalled and provides ample ammunition to help her continue her own dreams.

Thank you Alice for volunteering 194 hours to charities and joining 12 Time Auction experiences!

To see our upcoming experiences, head over to the Time Auction website.

Interviewed and written by Issac Chang | Edited by Giselle Lee