At the Hair for Hope 2016 event at VivoCity, QB House Managing Director Mr Ryoji Furuya was amazed by the number of female shavees.
“If we had this event in Japan, many of the shavees would be men. But here we have many young women, even those with long hair, who did not hesitate to shave. I have great respect for the Singaporeans who came forward to support this cause, said Mr Furuya.
QB House was the official hairstylist for Hair for Hope 2015 and 2016, although the Japanese hair salon had been supporting satellite events since 2012.
Besides the main Hair for Hope event, QB House also placed donation boxes at seven of its outlets, and donated $1 from every haircut over a weekend, raising about $8000 for CCF.
“QB House has been in Singapore for more than 10 years, and 99% of our customers are local. We wanted to contribute to the Singapore society, and since we specialise in cutting hair, Hair for Hope is a good fit,” says Mr Furuya.
Hair for Hope is the first social cause in Singapore the company has contributed to, but it has already drawn interests from QB House hairstylists across the region. In 2015, eight hairstylists from Japan, Taiwan and Hongkong volunteered for the main event, flying to Singapore at their own expense to join 70 local hairstylists here.
In 2016, the number of international volunteers more than doubled. Over 50 hairstylists from the same three countries volunteered for Hair for Hope, and 20 were eventually selected.
One of the hairstylists, Mr Miyazaki Yoshihisa from Japan, was the winner of QB House’s worldwide haircut contest. He volunteered for the event because one of his relative was undergoing cancer treatment, and he wanted to help others in the same boat. Cancer is universal, and so is the support for the fight against it.