With an eye to the future, service projects for the young dominated the agenda of the Club's Service.
The first project the Club launched was the Sponsor-A-Book Campaign co-organized with the Boy’s and Girl’s Association of Hong Kong (BGCA). The project was sparked by a concern for the importance of reviving good reading habits amongst young children. It was a successful project and the Club managed to purchase 10,000 books for six BGCA libraries. In later years, the Club continued to promote good reading habits amongst children through various means – organizing an Extensive Reading Scheme in English with the Institute of Language in Education; collecting and distributing books to the Tung Wah Group of Schools and the PHAB Children Centre; etc.
Encouraged by the success of the first campaign, the Club moved to other projects, one of which was to organize parties for the underprivileged children. The first Children’s Party was held on Zonta International Day (Nov. 8, 1980) at the Regent Hotel. The hotel provided food and beverages and sponsored entertainment programmes while Zontians turned up in full force to help serve the children. The experience proved so meaningful for both the children and Zontians that the Club decided to organize this function at least once a year. Subsequently, Children’s Parties were held on Zonta International Day or Children’s Day in the 5-star hotels or at country parks.
Later, the Club extended its services to children from single families, children with EQ problems, children/youths with difficulties at home and youths at risk.
Positive Living United Services (PLUS) seminars were run for parents of teenagers with EQ problems, the topics being "How to positively influence your children and help them manage EQ problems" and "Formation of Good Habits"
"Path Creation Project" organized by the Christian Service, targeted at unmotivated and non-engaged secondary school drop-outs to enhance their ability in facing and dealing with uncertainties, helping them to reduce their confusion in path finding, to increase their self-confidence and motivation, to widen their exposure, to facilitate their goal setting and to upgrade their problem solving abilities. Some youths were able to settle well in new schools or new jobs.
To prevent the socially disadvantaged problem adolescents who had experienced various achievement difficulties from social alienation, the POP Action Project provided them training sessions and social activities to facilitate their social integration. 31 borderline youths of the Yuen Long District went through 32 training sessions and other activities run by the HK Christian Service Yuen Long Outreaching Social Work Team. A POP Action Project Booklet was produced for distribution to youths and to welfare organizations .
Another project for borderline youths was run for 40 youths of the Free Methodist Church Leung Tin Children & Youth Centre. The project helped these youths from deprived families to enhance their self-confidence, interpersonal and resilience skills and mental abilities to face crisis and hardship; to direct them to build optimistic and positive attitude towards life and to guide them back into society. As a result, immense changes came among the participating youths and a good number of them turned more positive and tenacious in taking on new challenges in their career and studies.
To raise fund for the running of vocational and recreational training programmes for youths at risk, the Club for the first time organized and run the Zonta Club Hong Kong East/Youth Outreach Charity Bazaar. All goods for sale were donated and procured by members of the Club. The sale proceeds of slightly over $300,000 was donated to Youth Outreach, a crisis intervention centre for youths.
Projects were run for younger children. The Club sponsored "The Play Bus Tour Project" which invited The Youth Ambassador Group of Child's Right to enjoy children's day at a mobile play station, a KMB bus provided by the Club. Children from all over Hong Kong were able to gather and play together at this station.
"Play for Fun & Health" was a project organized by HK YWCA Jockey Club Shatin Integrated Social Service Centre for Primary 4 to 6 students with emotional disturbances. It was developed on two major theoretical themes - play therapy and emotional intelligence. 1300 students and parents participated in the project. A publication on children's mental health was published with the purpose of arousing public concern on the mental health of children.
Using art as the media to inspire the logical thinking and creative power of children and to enhance their language skills and expressiveness, the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children run an Education Programme on Art. The Club sponsored materials at its eighteen day-nurseries for one year, targeting at 1,800 children aged between 2 and 6.
To educate young people on the importance of home safety, a poster design competition entitled “Safety in the Home” was launched among Primary 5 to Form 2 students. The project proved to be so successful that another competition of similar nature on “Home Cleanliness” was organized. For the latter, apart from awarding the winners with prizes in the form of scholarships and plaques, the winning posters were reproduced and distributed to the various district offices for display. Exhibitions of the winning and selected posters were also organized in the Landmark, Whampoa Plaza and City Plaza.
Within three days of the Tsunami Disaster, The Club raised an amount of $130,000 among its members and donated it to UNICEF for orphans and children victims. This was in addition to another donation of $50,000 made to UNICEF in honour of Mrs. Anson Chan, the Club's Honorary Member, being appointed as the Most Dynamic Woman of 2004 by Clarins Ltd. |
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