Freshfields has been assisting OneSky for twenty years, helping so-called ‘left-behind children’ in Asia.

Before OneSky was founded in 1998, many children in China without families were sheltered and cared for at institutions.

To address the lack of nurturing care and quality early education for these children, OneSky began by creating Infant Nurture Centres and Preschools for orphaned children in China. They expanded from two government welfare institutions to 20, then to more than 50. But it became clear that this model could not reach all the children in need of help, which included those whose parents’ work commitments left little or no time to spend with their children. (In China alone hundreds of millions of workers have left their ancestral villages in rural areas and their young children to the care of elderly grandparents in search of better paid jobs in the cities and often only able to return to their homes to visit their families once a year at Lunar New Year.)

A shift in focus saw OneSky’s best centres become demonstration Early Learning Centres, providing quality care at scale. OneSky became first and foremost a training organisation, training local staff and communities to provide tailored early interaction and stimulation for a healthy start. The goal is to prepare children to enter society as intellectual and social equals with their peers. The OneSky Global Centre for Early Childhood Development, which opened in Hong Kong in 2019, aims to be a world-class hub for quality early education, offering nurturing and caregiver training, as well providing resources for professionals in the field.

OneSky also expanded to Mongolia and Vietnam, in addition to China. As the demand for its services grew, OneSky developed online learning tools and expanded capacity by teaching caregivers to train others through Training of Trainers.

Freshfields’ pro bono work with OneSky

Freshfields has been a long-term partner to OneSky, providing ongoing pro bono legal advice from offices including Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, London, New York, Düsseldorf and Amsterdam on a wide range of issues including restructuring, IP (trademarks, training materials, licences etc) and extensive support during the planning stages of Hong Kong’s Centre for Early Development.

We provide more hands-on support through involving Freshfields employees. We have sponsored an infant nurture programme in China’s Huangshi, supported annual gala fundraisers in Hong Kong and London, participated in charity hikes in Hong Kong and volunteered at children’s centres in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, undertaking essential hands-on work such as redecoration and cleaning. We introduced clients to the work of OneSky and arranged joint volunteering sessions for the benefit of OneSky’s children and their families.  We have also donated laptops and mobile phones for use by their offices in Hong Kong and Mongolia.

On the strong relationship between Freshfields and OneSky, CEO and Founder Jenny Bowen says: “I am so grateful for our incredibly productive partnership with Freshfields. Over and over in the last decade Freshfields’ immensely competent and energetic staff have helped us navigate the legal challenges inevitable in our work, pitched in at fundraising events, and brought smiles to the children. I cannot thank them enough.”