Many refugees arriving in Hong Kong have fled from their homes as a result of war, violence or persecution. There are approximately 13,000 asylum seekers in Hong Kong, often waiting for as long as 15-20 years for the results of their appeals.
In disaster management, the framework of participatory capacities and vulnerabilities analysis (namely “PCVA”) has been widely adopted for needs assessment over the past three decades in different countries. This lens was also referenced by ZeShan team to understand not only the impact of the ongoing 5th wave of COVID pandemic on vulnerable people but also the systemic drivers behind such impact. These often touch upon issues related to social inclusion, public governance, health equity, equal access to public resources and even policy issues.
PCVA is rooted in two proven social development methodologies. First, of course, it stems from the traditional tool of CVA which enables frontline workers to design and plan relief projects, based on capacities and vulnerabilities of a community. It recognizes vulnerable people have capacities to cope with adversity and can take actions to improve and rebuild their lives, before, during and/or after a disaster. Second, PCVA has originated from the belief that empowering communities to participate in program design, planning and/or management would lead to increased ownership, accountability, and impact. This is therefore the best way to bring about recovery or even changes.
This framework indeed aligns very much with ZeShan’s core approach of community empowerment in all program planning. We believe, in every community, people have resources and capacities, but often unnoticed and then under-utilized. In the process of disaster relief and recovery, it is therefore very important to identify these resources and capacities, and then empower people at all levels, including the so-called victims. This process is always a more sustainable way to help people help themselves and others, and rebuild their own life and community.
In the past three months, through this lens, we discussed with peer foundations, project partners and people in Hong Kong. We have identified the pressing needs of the most vulnerable ones as well as some of their precious but unnoticed resources and capacities. With more than 10 new relief grants, ZeShan has focused on those marginalized or excluded under the existing policy frameworks and mainstream service provision or subsidy schemes. These include grassroots families, ethnic minorities, refugees and asylum seekers, small businesses and social enterprises struggling with unsold food stock and poor cashflows. Designing each of our relief programs, we have tried hard to mobilize their own untapped labour and unused materials inside our hard-hit communities, with a view to preparing themselves better and stronger in the forthcoming process of economic recovery.
For a charitable foundation, we consider it not difficult to hand out materials to the needy. We are therefore trying hard to be more forward looking. At this current relief stage, whenever possible, a more empowering process was consciously designed and executed in our relief projects. For we believe, this will be a more effective and sustainable way to help them rebuild their own communities at the next rehabilitation phase.
Our recent relief grants:
| Initiated by | Project |
| Chow Tai Fook Charity Foundation | Wu Wu Cheng” Community Mutual Support Initiative” |
| Fullness Social Enterprises Society Limited | Love Our Neighbour |
| Dialogue in the Dark (HK) Foundation |
WeCare (Emergent Emotional Support for Vulnerable Elderly) |
| Health In Action | Emergency Relief to Cleaners and Deprived Families Working and/or Living in Kwai Chung |
| Run Hong Kong | Covid Relief – Health and Essential Services Covid Relief – Psychological Support |
| Christian Action – Centre for Refugees | COVID-19 Fifth Wave Emergency Distribution |
| United Christian Nethersole Community Health Service | COVID-19 Care for Ethnic Minorities |
| The Neighbourhood Advice-Action Council | Friendly Food Support Scheme |
| Hong Kong Unison | 5th Wave (COVID-19) Ethnic Minority Emergency Relief Project |
Irene SO
Executive Director
ZeShan Foundation
Branches of Hope (“BoH”) started the Lunchbox Outreach Project in November 2020, which provides healthy food to street cleaners in Wan Chai. Beyond ordinary relief work, the scope of this project aims to address issues around the social inclusion of often marginalized communities. For the first distribution of 90 lunchboxes, meals were made from recipes provided by members of the Nepalese and South Asian community, who were also able to interact with the cleaners who received the lunchboxes. The feedback from one local street cleaner reflected that the kind gesture of sharing food and friendly attitude during social interactions had made them feel welcome and accepted in Hong Kong, as it was not something they regularly experienced in their daily lives.
Despite the suspension of lunchbox preparation due to the fourth wave of COVID-19, BoH has continued to support street cleaners around Wan Chai, reaching out to distribute care packages, face masks, canned food, and snacks. Taking the lead, members of the refugee community came up with the idea to buy scarves, lip balm, and hand cream to gift to the street cleaners on Christmas Eve, packing them into nicely wrapped gift packs along with other donated items and supermarket vouchers.
In January 2021, BoH expanded their outreach to include waste pickers and the homeless.
Refugees and BoH staff distributing relief supplies to local street cleaners
When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
ZeShan is supporting RUN Hong Kong (“RUN”) in addressing the additional mental stressors brought about by COVID-19 to refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) in Hong Kong. With the aim of providing safe and supportive environments for those effected to recover from past trauma, to build support networks, and to improve on skills for future resilience, the initiative expanded across three programmes:
Over the course of 9 sessions between September and November of 2020, 29 children (aged 3-12) participated in a structured sports program run by 3 volunteer coaches. Beginning in September 2020, RUN additionally provided one hour of homework support prior to each sports session, aided by Year 12 Chinese International School students who volunteer with RUN on a bi-weekly basis. The program is currently on hold due to COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.
12 teens (7 female & 5 male, average age of 18) participated in a variety of outdoor activities over 6 Sundays in October and November of 2020. Run by Asia Pacific Adventures (APA), the activities included: water sports, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, rock climbing, gorge hiking, and exploration activities.
Psychology Sessions with Dr. Ken Fung
“Before seeing Dr. Fung, I did not see my problems. I thought I was ok, but I was not ok. I stayed at home all day, I only left the house once a week to go to church. I felt overwhelmed and felt a lot of pressure being with the children all the time. I had no motivation to go outside, I did not want to see anyone, I just wanted to stay home all the time. After first seeing Dr. Fung, I felt much better because I had someone to talk to about how I was feeling. I had a reason to leave the house. Dr. Fung’s session in addition to regular English classes at RUN and MakerBay classes (also organized by RUN), I feel much happier. Right now, I have a much better mindset, and I feel positive about the future.”
*Testimony from a recent graduate of Dr. Fung’s psychology sessions
Running class for refugee teens
Rock climbing class for refugee teens
When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
The refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) community is isolated and marginalized in Hong Kong, and whose situation has been compounded by the COVID-19 outbreak, additionally facing language barriers that hinder their access of accurate information on the pandemic, face rising food process, and do not qualify for government relief.
In response to exacerbated needs under the circumstances of COVID-19, Centre for Refugees (CFR) of Christian Action conducted home visits to families and individuals of the RAS community to distribute essential relief items, food vouchers, and information on COVID-19. During these visits, case work teams took the opportunity to assess risks of child or domestic abuse, and also made referrals to empowerment and mental health programs by CFR and partner NGOs.
| “I think home visits are very important for us. In the office, caseworkers are often so busy, especially now with the renovation- there is no space, no privacy. When you come to our homes, you have time to listen to our stories, and we have time to open up and speak honestly about how we are feeling. Someone might be sad for a long time but not speak about it, until you go to their home and they dare to open up.”
Refugee Woman, 41, West Africa |
| “This family with three children was so excited when we visited them. The children seldom come outside anymore because of COVID-19, so when we came to their place for the home visit, they talked excitedly about a lot of their things and proudly played with us. “Can you look at my paintings?” It was just a simple question, but the children said it sincerely, as they hadn’t chatted with any other people for long time. For other people, a visit is just a simple action, but for our clients, it’s making their day.”
CFR Caseworker, visiting asylum seeker family of three |
| “Through our Zeshan Foundation home visits, we are actually confronted with how our clients are living in Hong Kong. We can even experience part of the their living routine, like how they come out and back home with long commute times. During the visits, we also bring some food and sanitary items to clients- it’s a bit heavy, but at the same time, we finally know how our clients feel when carrying these such items from Centre for Refugees to their homes. To keep their expenses as low as possible, most of them need to live on top floors without lifts. Without the visit, we would not truly know the full extent of our client’s homes- bad conditions, long distances, and such expensive rent.
Through these home visits, we also come to know that the services we provide to our clients are crucial to them. Although sometimes we cannot do anything to help them, we always try our best to solve their problems, and give whatever we have.” |
| “I’ve been locked down in this building for 12 years, COVID-19 doesn’t affect me at all!” This client is a single man who has lived in the same building for many years, and is still waiting for refugee status determination. He lives with two other flatmates; they spend their time cooking and watching TV together. There is nothing much else he can do during his free time. He was happy that Centre for Refugees caseworkers visited him- that gave him more support and reassurance that he is not being forgotten. – Asylum seeker |
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When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
