Genting Hong Kong and Heep Hong Society have joined hands to launch an internship programme in which autistic teenagers from the society?s ?Autistic Youth Pre-job Training Project? earned hands-on experience onboard the Hong Kong-homeported Star Pisces. The internship aims at nurturing the interns? workplace skills and contributing to their career development.
As the only international cruise line operator based in Hong Kong, Star Cruises and its parent company Genting Hong Kong have been working closely with local education institutes to create opportunities for students to learn about the various aspects of cruise operations. The current internship will expand that scope to the underprivileged in the community.
From July to August this year, the Heep Hong interns will be assigned to Star Cruises? Embarkation division in Hong Kong and help guests to get onboard Star Pisces. To facilitate their learning and training, Star Cruises has dedicated staff to work in tandem with the interns through gradual job assignments, allowing them time to adapt to the new working environments.
To put their work experience into focus, the company has also arranged the interns to assist in a group visit of underprivileged families from St. James? Settlement on board Star Pisces today. The interns facilitated the participants and the children to tour the vessel and introduced various onboard facilities to them. Not only did the interns took part in this volunteer activity, they also experienced the joy of helping others.
Ms Vivian Sim, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications & PR, Genting Hong Kong, said, ?Nurturing talent to support the cruise industry has always been an integral part of 2 Genting Hong Kong Limited (Continued into Bermuda with limited liability ? Registration No.29337) (formerly known as Star Cruises Limited) Genting Hong Kong?s commitment from the start. In May this year, we launched an Open House initiative which garnered over 460 tourism students and teachers to get on board our cruise ships across Asia. From their visits and discussions with our staff, they learned first hand about our cruise operations.?
She continued, ?We?re glad to have the opportunity to work with Heep Hong Society to expand our talent-nurturing work to the underprivileged. We believe that the current internship will have a very positive influence on the autistic interns in developing workplace skills as well as confidence about their roles in the society.?
Regional Manager of Heep Hong Society, Godwin Cheung, said, ?The intellectual capabilities of some autistic people are as good as their normal peers, They are good at visual learning, candid, responsible and have strong memory, So long as they find the right positions, they would completely dedicate themselves to the job and take great delight in it. We are grateful for Genting Hong Kong?s initiative and support to our programme and hope that more employers would join our ?Autistic Youth Pre-job Training Project? to give internship and job opportunities to autistic youths so that they can apply what they have learnt, integrate into the community and lead an independent life.?
During the internship, the Heep Hong Society interns learned to handle various tasks with confidence. They thanked the Genting Hong Kong staff for their generosity with their time.
To put their work experience into focus, Genting Hong Kong arranged the interns to assist in the ?Star Pisces Summer Fun Day? today. They confidently introduced the vessel?s onboard facilities to families and children from St. James? Settlement.
Source: Star Cruises Limited ?