Message from the Founder
 

Hi! I'm Mira, and I'm a sophomore in high school. I currently attend boarding school in the U.S., but I was born and raised in Hong Kong. I enjoy playing the piano, running, reading, drawing, as well as writing in both English and Chinese. I founded Shine during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. I want to help girls in orphanages of OneSky Foundation to strive and live better lives. I believe that all children have the potential to succeed. Through auctioning paintings drawn by the orphans of One Sky and sharing the love of learning, this organization aims support the children as much as possible, help them improve their lives, and most of all, help them strive for their passions and dreams.

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We are a group of teenagers, having avid interest in raising awareness towards helping children left behind - from abandoned orphans to children in villages whose parents are migrant workers working in cities, as well as underprivileged children in Hong Kong.

We have especially been impressed and influenced by a great woman and a great organisation. Her name is Jenny Bowen, and the organisation is called OneSky Foundation. Ms. Jenny Bowen founded OneSky during the late 1990s to nurture orphans in mainland China. OneSky was for a long time named “Half the Sky (HTS)”, as there was a saying “Women hold up half the sky”. However, this was not the case in China, and girls take up nearly 96% of orphanages.

In 2012, HTS’ 50+ orphanage centers were transferred to Chunhui Children which is independently registered in mainland China. To know more about Ms. Jenny Bowen’s story on founding OneSky, you may read her amazing book “Wish You Happy Forever: What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains.”

At Shine, we do many things. We Auction the paintings and artworks created by those talented left-behind children. We also share our writing, post book recommendations, our music, wushu martial arts tutorials, and more! During the Covid-19 pandemic, we decided to host virtual painting auctions as it was impossible for us to hold galas to raise funding and travel to orphanages and villages to provide tutorials and learning resources in person.