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District Highlights 2019-20

“Inspiration of Love, Care and Integration”

  • The “District Collaboration Project” is one of the volunteer programmes that the Central Western, Southern and Islands District Social Welfare Office (District Social Welfare Office) has endeavoured to promote to the community. Every year, subvented welfare service organisations/units are invited to work with other groups within the district to design and implement service projects for needy groups having regard to local characteristics and needs. With “Inspiration of Love, Care and Integration” as the theme for 2019-20 and “family harmony”, “youth development”, “social integration”, and “mutual help in the neighbourhood” as the service directions, the District Social Welfare Office allocated funds for subvented welfare service units to co-operate with other groups within the district, including government departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local organisations, schools, religious groups, volunteer organisations, business corporations, and mutual aid committees in public housing estates, etc. through cross-service and cross-sectoral collaboration. Innovative and diversified programmes were planned with regard to local characteristics. As the district-based projects encouraged the use of innovative strategies for the planning of programmes, enthusiastic response were received from different service units.
  • In the past year, the District Social Welfare Office funded 33 projects, benefiting more than 8 230 service users. A total of 146 NGOs, government departments and local organisations took part in these projects, involving more than 1 200 volunteers. Having closely worked with each other for almost a year, the partnered service units developed good rapport and enhanced their collaboration. Moreover, volunteers and participants had a better understanding of the services and a greater sense of belonging to the community.

“Crisis ‧ Chances”

  • In response to the social incidents that took place in 2019, the District Social Welfare Office provided special funding to NGOs in the district for providing services to address the emotional needs of young people and their families, strengthen family support for young people, and restore family relationships through timely intervention and follow-up having regard to the district situation.
  • A series of programmes with distinguished features were launched in the Central Western, Southern and Islands District. Joining hands with the Hong Kong Caritas Youth and Community Service, the “Listen to Your Heart with Love” Community Emotional Support Scheme was organised to run a series of activities that helped students, young people, parents and teachers to relieve their distress. They were also given some self-designed items for daily use to promote emotional well-being. In partnership with the Youth Service Team of the Neighbourhood Advice Action Council Tung Chung Integrated Services Centre, another programme, namely the “Work Plan on Concerning Youth Mental Wellness” was organised to relieve the stress of young people and enhance their ability to cope with stress through therapeutic activities, such as aromas, yoga, arts production and rest space, etc. Furthermore, to render help to emotionally distressed young people, the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals (TWGHs) launched an “ad-hoc project”, which provided emotional support for users of TWGHs-aided Integrated Service Centres as well as secondary school students, their family members and school personnel who had been receiving school social work service from those centres. Meanwhile, emotional management talks/groups/workshops were held to strengthen resilience against adversity among families and young people.
  • In view of the positive feedback, the above projects would continue in 2020, with a view to fostering communication among family members through various activities and providing emotional support to parents and young people.

“Walk with Me”

  • To recognise the efforts and contributions of volunteers, the District Social Welfare Office organised the “Walk with me-Volunteer Training Day Camp cum Award Presentation Ceremony” on 19 October 2019 at the Hong Kong PHAB Association Jockey Club PHAB Camp. Through a series of games and activities, participants could experience the challenges and difficulties faced by persons with disabilities in their life. Meanwhile, a number of volunteer groups were invited to share their experience in the ceremony. Organisations and groups, and “Community Caring Shops” which had implemented volunteer activities in the district were commended for their efforts in promoting the spirit of care and mutual help in the community. 37 NGOs and business corporations were invited to participate in the ceremony. 112 persons attended the ceremony and 97 of them were representatives from organisations for commendation.
  • As at December 2019, there were more than 8 000 registered volunteers in our district and their total service hours amounted to 619 315 hours. We believe that more local residents will join volunteering in the future and our volunteer team will become stronger.

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