Origin

Twinklestars first started in Huaiji County of Guangdong Province. In May 2008, Mr CHIU Kwong-fai, who eventually became the founder of Twinklestars, and Mr. LEE Yuk-sum (Sam) participated in an event held by the Alumni Association of Tsuen Wan Government Secondary Technical School to encourage senior secondary students to study hard for the university entrance exam. That was the first time Mr Chiu and Mr Lee set foot on Huaiji County. Little did they know that they would be moved by the speech of a student, which subsequently led to the birth of Twinklestars.

It was KONG Fu-di, a Senior Secondary 3 student of Huaiji Yizhong. She said her family would be too poor to pay for her study in university even though she could succeed in the exam and was offered a place. However, she was still very grateful to the charity organization that subsidized her school fees in the secondary school, and she pledged to help other people in future. This touched Mr Chiu, and the idea of helping needy students to pursue their studies in university was seeded.

Back in Hong Kong, Mr Chiu shared the idea with Mr TSE Kin-man (Michael) and Mr KAM Hoi-yan (Raymond). They were very supportive. Then Mr LEE Yuk-sum (Sam) started to plan and implement an education assistance scheme, which was eventually named Twinklestars. The problems of KONG Fu-di, and her pledge to keep up the spirit of helping others became the core of the vision and mission of Twinklestars.

Mr LEE Yuk-sum (Sam) and Mr CHIU Kwong-fai discussed details of Twinklestars while Mr Lee was traveling to Ma Shan County of Guangxi District with Mr. Kwok Tung Keung (Simon) for the sponsorship of a school renovation project. As a result, Ms Liu Dong Fang, Director of The United Front Work Department of Ma Shan County and Mr Kwok learnt about Twinklestars. Ms Liu requested Mr Lee to introduce the scheme to Ma Shan as well because students there were also in dire need of assistance. Mr Kwok generously and kindly volunteered to take up the responsibility of developing the scheme in Ma Shan.

In August 2008, Mr Chiu, Mr Lee and Mr KAM Hoi-yan (Raymond) returned to Huaiji County and selected 10 students with admission for tertiary institutions offers for subsidy. Late that month, Mr Lee, Mr Kam and Mr Kwok also selected 15 students with university offers in Ma Shan and Nanning City in Guangxi for subsidy. Thus Twinklestars was inaugurated with its first batch of 25 Stars i.e. subsidized students.