District Highlights 2021-22
Fostering Social Impact through Cross-sector Collaboration
The Kowloon City and Yau Tsim Mong District Social Welfare Office (KC/YTMDSWO) endeavours to facilitate cross-sector collaboration and innovative approaches for early identification and support for underprivileged groups or hidden groups in the community. Through active collaboration among service units, a total of 38 community care projects were organised under the theme of “New Vision‧Fostering Social Impact” initiated by KC/YTMDSWO in 2021-22 under the challenges of the pandemic. In addition to mobilising volunteers to facilitate and consolidate social capital, the ongoing partnership and collaboration among the service units also achieved synergistic effects, involving over 10 000 beneficiaries. To appreciate the efforts of the participating service units and further consolidate the collaborations amongst stakeholders, an online ceremony was conducted to award outstanding service units. Moreover, in view of the higher population density of ethnic minorities (EMs) in the district, the KC/YTMDSWO is also mindful of facilitating their access to mainstream welfare services, especially under the pandemic. To keep the momentum of collaboration and achieve synergy among stakeholders in providing support services to the EMs, the KC/YTMDSWO pooled together nearly 20 units providing services for EMs in the district. While reviewing the unique challenges of the ethnic groups, the platform also produced tailored-made souvenir promoting the message of child protection with information on the support services for district-wide distribution through relevant service units.
“Alliance for Resilience” – Touching stories in the community under the pandemic
KC/YTM DSWO set up the “Alliance for Resilience” through recruiting the local organisations to form volunteer teams, encouraging them to connect and build up district network or partnership with other community stakeholders, mobilising their own capital to serve the underprivileged groups during the pandemic. The recruitment response was very satisfactory. Since August 2020, 40 teams had been established which involved 16 teams from Kowloon City District and 24 teams from Yau Tsim Mong District. They came from various welfare organisations/services units and volunteer groups, including KC/YTM DSWO and SWD frontline service units. More than 130 volunteer service programmes were organised by these teams, including online concern visits to the elderly persons, collection and distribution of personal protective equipment, Chinese medicine health talks and home repair for the persons in need etc.
To further promote the message of “Love & Caring”, KC/YTM DSWO collected 12 touching stories that took place in the district during the pandemic and published 2 000 copies of storybook for distribution in the community. Through these touching stories, it is hoped that the positive messages would touch the hearts of readers and inspire more people to become volunteer so as to build a caring and inclusive community together. The storybook will also be released and uploaded onto the Departmental Webpage in the form of pdf e-book for public access.
“Cherish our Elders like a Treasure” – Cultivating a cherishing environment for the elderly
KC/YTM DSWO launched a two-year plan (2020-2022) to cultivate a caring and joyous environment for the elderly persons through cross-sector collaboration among elderly services units, local bodies and volunteer organizations in the district. It aimed at arousing the awareness of the elderly service units on the prevention and handling of elder abuse as well as enhancing the ability of early identification to provide appropriate support and follow-up services. KC/YTM DSWO organised a training workshop namely “Know More About Protecting the Elderly” so as to enhance the skills of the elderly service workers in the district in handling “suspected elder abuse” cases. Participants came from community elderly service centres, day care centres for the elderly, home care service teams, units operating Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly, private residential care homes for the elderly and Multi-disciplinary Outreaching Support Teams for the Elderly. They found this training workshop very useful to their skill enhancement.
“Enabling inclusion of Persons with Disabilities through multi-media arts”
The Kowloon City and Yau Tsim Mong District Co-ordinating Committee on Rehabilitation Services organised a two-year programme, namely “Enabling Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) through Multi-media Arts” (2020-2022). In order to provide opportunities for PWDs to unleash their potentials and promote social inclusion, PWDs were invited to join the digital photo competition and act in two micro movies, which illustrated true stories of PWDs in their workplace and community living, as well as their interaction with their carers and employers. The photo competition received over 200 entries. The micro movies and winning entries of digital photo competition were exhibited at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Foyer Exhibition Areas from 26 October to 29 October 2021. The opening ceremony of the exhibition and the award ceremony of the photo competition were successfully held on 26 October. About 50 participants/visitors attended the ceremony cum exhibition on that day, including the winners of the photo competition and their families/carers. In addition, employers who had supported the employment of PWDs for many years also shared their experience in the ceremony. During the exhibition, on-site guided tours were provided to the visitors by rehabilitation units.