Jockey Club MEL Institute Project Opening Ceremony cum Symposium on Program Evaluation and Impact Assessment

Jockey Club MEL Institute Project Opening Ceremony cum Symposium on Program Evaluation and Impact Assessment

Prof. Alan Kam Leung CHAN, Provost, CUHK officiated the Opening Ceremony

Mr. Bryan WONG, Head of Charities (Ageing and Elderly Care), The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust officiated the Opening Ceremony

A Group Photo of Guests of Honors and Speakers

A Group Photo of Guests of Honors, Speakers and Participants

With the success and effectiveness of Phase One, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust continues to support Jockey Club MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) Institute Project for Phase Two (2022 – 2025). The Opening Ceremony cum Symposium on Program Evaluation and Impact Assessment was successfully held on November 4, 2022 via Zoom with over 270 participants attended from different parts of the world, including Australia, Italy, Finland, mainland China, and Hong Kong.

During the event, it was our honour to have Prof. Alan Kam Leung CHAN, Provost, CUHK and Mr. Bryan WONG, Head of Charities (Ageing and Elderly Care), The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, to officiate the Opening Ceremony. Prof. CHAN said the MEL Project reflects the CUHK’s commitment of creating the impact and value that will make a positive difference to our community. Mr. WONG quoted a popular saying “What gets measured gets improved” which represents the essence of this project–to help people to do better. Professionals in this sector yearn for a set of common language, tools, and skills to assess the effectiveness of what they do and learn from experience. They are also interested in how to serve more people, and serve them better.

Prof. Cinzia CANALI, Director of Emanuela Zancan Foundation, Italy, gave us a very insightful keynote presentation on the topic From “Childhood, First” to Multisite Projects for Fighting Educational Poverty. During her presentation, she highlighted that the projects adopt a generative welfare approach that involves the active participation of not only parents and children but also all relevant stakeholders. They collectively represent open-air experiments for co-creating new ideas and solutions to improve the well-being of children and families experiencing educational poverty in Italy. The projects have also been systematically monitored and evaluated among communities of practice, whose members have discussed the anticipated and actual outcomes of their innovative work.

Prof. Steven NGAI from the Department of Social Work, CUHK introduced the training course and Online Knowledge Hub. The training course would be delivered by internationally and locally well-known MEL experts, while the mentored practicum would be conducted by local experts from social work, business, media, and information technology fields. With Prof. NGAI’s introduction, participants have gained a fuller understanding of the MEL Project and how it can enhance sustainability of the social service sector by developing NGO practitioners’ program evaluation capacity to amplify the effect of social services.

The Jockey Club MEL Institute Project Certificate Training Course and Mentored Practicum for 2023 is now open for application. If you would like to learn more about this project, please watch the video below. You may also apply via the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScC5_MScQ30ZgoZJkpd_SWDQA4_vRMiTYu3cWXORQGaclMptQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

If you would like to access the presentation slides of our speakers, you can download them below: