Original Vision of WAO

Entrepreneurship has never been easy. Some travel this difficult road because of a dream, and others because they wish to stand on their own two feet. WAO was established on a courageous spirit of “helping wherever possible, doing whatever is doable.”

The original vision of WAO, as expressed by founder Sophia and Johnson was the concept of “helping wherever possible, doing whatever is doable.” As a mother, Sophia was most concerned about the health of her family: “At the start of the pandemic everything was in complete chaos. I was forced to constantly search for products due to the needs of my husband, my two babies, and myself – a family of four, which means significant need for virus protection products – plus what was needed in looking after several elder members of the family. Sophia is not only a mother but also a daughter, and has to care for both the younger and older generations, which is not a light task. Johnson, who is a father, completely understands the stress that Sophia is under: “Everyone is the same, all of our friends are confronting the same hardships. Families big and small, with young and old members, have to worry about how to do their best to take care of everyone.”

Making our vision a reality, step by step

Sophia witnessed the inability of her friends to buy virus protection products, and as a result she took action to help. Sophia and Johnson are friends from the Chamber of Commerce, with Sophia unintentionally finding out that Johnson was helping friends and customers to purchase facemasks and disinfectant products, without taking any profit, while also helping to arrange deliveries.

Sophia recalls that, “I appreciate Johnson’s decision to contribute, since we are all confronting the same situation. We decided to divide up the work and collaborate, since if we teamed up we could help out more of our friends. We divided up the tasks of ordering products, parcelling goods, shipping them out, with everyone working together shoulder to shoulder. The only difficulty was in ordering facemasks, no matter what country we ordered from, even if already paid, in almost all cases they could not deliver, which wasted a lot of our time and effort, and ultimately disappointment!” Johnson added, “after we discussed it, we decided that going into production ourselves was more practical! I have experience in fabric business operations, so we have definite familiarity with fabrics. Sophia’s commercial network permitted us to quickly establish ISO-8 compliant dustless workshops in industrial parks, and as a result the decision to produce facemasks quickly went from concept to reality.”

A vision of the future

The courageous spirit of “helping wherever possible, doing whatever is doable,” facilitated the establishment of WAO. Even though Sophia and Johnson were filled with confidence and courage, they have confronted many difficulties in the process of producing facemasks. Sophia said, “In terms of the factory, raw materials, machines, packing, and final products, we have always tried to do the best possible, so we had quite a lot to think about. During these times of pandemic, far too many people think of taking advantage, so whenever we got in contact with factories, we were very wary! Before starting, we had to collect materials, completely understand the data and information related to production, and carefully evaluated all details, in order to manufacture high quality masks.”

Johnson agrees, “That’s right! There was no way for us to monitor foreign factories at every moment, so this was another reason why we decided to establish our factory in Hong Kong. Manufacturing in Hong Kong has all along been a guarantee of confidence, since we can tightly monitor the process of production at the Hong Kong factory. For many years the spirit of the people of Hong Kong has been one of making great achievements. The people of Hong Kong work hard, we all just want our family to live happily. The goal of WAO is to become a pillar of support to the people of Hong Kong, and to supply high quality products. We believe that the people of Hong Kong can encourage and support each other. Even if we face great challenges ahead, we can endure it all together!