Monthly Archives: November 2015
Supporting the Mission For Migrant Workers
Posted by Peter MUIR
The Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW) prides itself as the leading service and advocacy institution for migrants in Hong Kong and is the longest existing in Asia, providing services to migrants of different nationalities for 34 years now.
In 2014 alone, more than 4,100 migrants in distress were provided direct welfare assistance including paralegal counseling, case assistance referrals to professional services, and temporary shelter. In addition, more than 8,000 migrants benefitted from mobile counseling and other services through their Give Care to Our Caregivers program where individual supporters and professional groups share their time and skills to make migrant domestic workers feel they are cared for also by the Hong Kong people.
With the steady increase and quick turnover of foreign domestic workers mostly women from underdeveloped or developing countries like Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the condition of foreign domestic workers has not changed as policies reflecting adverse social attitudes towards migrants continue to dominate their living and working condition and good policies need yet to be fully implemented.
The MFMW is looking for your support so that they can continue their efforts. What could you do as a part of your Community Engagement to support them?
Write for Rights
Posted by Peter MUIR
Your words, combined with thousands of others from all over the world, can change a life. Become part of Amnesty International’s Write for Rights by adding your voice – write for justice and human rights. Putting pressure on officials can result in torture being stopped, access granted to doctors or lawyers, death sentence being commuted, disappearances investigated, prisoners released and better human rights policies introduced. For more details about how you can use your words for change, click here.
Protecting Our Elephants
Posted by Peter MUIR
Here Year 7 student Fergus Condon reports on some guest speakers working in animal conservation who visited DC
On November 24th some guest speakers from the organisations The Elephant Society, Big Life and Ol Jogi presented to Year 7 and 8 students. To begin with we had Ted Hodgkinson, co-founder of The Elephant Society, a Hong Kong-based organisation that aims to raise awareness of the plight of endangered species in Africa. He delivered a very moving talk and inspired many students to actively do something to prevent the trade of ivory in Hong Kong. Following this Jamie Gaymer, head of wildlife and security at Ol Jogi Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, spoke to us about what he does as a ranger and the work he does in protecting theon the endangered eastern black rhino. His talk was very entertaining and gave students a deeper understanding of what is involved. Ol Jogi wildlife conservation covers some 58,000 acres.
Last but not least, Big Life representer Daniel Ole Sambu took to the stage. Daniel, is a Maasai Warrior and was dressed in traditional costume which was amazing and colourful and certainly grabbed the attention of the audience. He has worked with the Big Life Foundation since 2009. Daniel also showed a very powerful and heart breaking video (below) of how wildlife is being destroyed by poachers, it is estimated that within 15 years all wildlife will cease to exist unless we actively do something about it. This has inspired students to raise awareness and funds to prevent the killing of precious wildlife.
Over all, these speakers have convinced students that is time we actively do something to prevent the beautiful wildlife in Africa being completely destroyed. Students will soon be asked to join a petition that will be sent to the Hong Kong government requesting that they stop Hong Kong’s ivory trade.
Street Sleeping Experience by DC students
Posted by Peter MUIR
Here is a report from Year 9 student Summer Chiu, who along with fellow Year 9 students Man Yiu Tang, Sharon Jone, Karina Chan, took part in a street sleeping experience to take a glimpse at what it would be like to be homeless in HK.
In this activity, we were to experience a day in the life of a street sleeper.
We started off by doing some volunteering with a man called Ming Gor, who is involved in a programme of delivering cheap or free food to those in need. The meal boxes that we gave out to the single elderly and the street sleepers are actually prepared and organized by Ming Gor’s restaurant. He also sells cheap meals to the residents for about $16 per meal. During our chat with Ming Gor, he told us about his hard time running his restaurant because of the high rent fees. When he realized that he earned enough and is able to help others, he started giving out free meal boxes to street sleepers and the single elderly. He is able to make everybody unite and come together to help the poor. He is able to care for a lot of people in Sham Shui Po all at once. We can all feel the warmth and kindness that he have just to help other people.
As we were on our way back from giving out meal boxes to elderly, we passed by a street where some homeless lived. The workers who accompanied us said that some of these sleepers are Vietnamese, Mainlanders, and some are from Hong Kong. When we walked by this place and observed the surroundings, we realized that they don’t have much but the abandoned things that people used to use, which many others would call garbage. When they feel hungry and have no money, they often pick up any other food remains outside of restaurants which are very unhygienic. Some street sleepers can afford to live in a split home, but rather not because in the split homes, even though there is shelter, it is a incredibly small place to live and there are usually unhygienic environments.
We arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui around 10 o’clock, and went to the harbour of the Cultural Museum and enjoyed our break by looking at the beautiful city of Hong Kong. After that, Kate and Stephen have prepared an activity, which was a discussion about the homeless. We played different roles in the discussion: the government, Sham Shui Po residents, Social workers and the homeless, to share different perspectives about the homeless in the streets. Through the discussion, we saw that the government only puts little resources to help the homeless, but would rather spend large amount of money for environmental ornamentation, such as concrete flower pots and the pets garden, in order to avoid the street sleepers from occupying public areas.
We tried to find a place to sleep as there were uneven walls and there are lots of other people chatting very loudly around the area. Next we decided to go to McDonald’s to get ready for bed. We then found relatively clean paper boxes on our way out of McDonald’s which is next to the rubbish bin, and tore them apart so we could use it.
During our sleep, there were lots of things happening around us. It started raining but luckily, it stopped after 5 mins. All the lights are turned off in the area that we slept in, so we weren’t blinded by the lights. At 3 o’clock at night a bunch of young men rode bikes and play tricks with them in our area. According to Stephen, they did nothing to try avoid running over us and they nearly ran over our heads. Then we got attacked by flies and wood fleas throughout our sleep. The wind was howling too and we are all very cold.
In the morning, we all woke up at around 5am in the morning. All night, we were sleeping on the hard ground and having only 1-2 hours of sleep because of the distractions. After a debriefing, we were able to go back home and enjoy our sleep!
It was a very meaningful, precious but exhausting experience. Of course, we did have fun and have learnt something new!
Global Climate March HK
Posted by Peter MUIR
On November 30th, world leaders meet in Paris to start negotiating the next global climate deal. The day before, people around the world will take to the streets and push leaders at every level of government to commit to 100% clean energy. The aim: push the world towards a climate deal that gets us off dirty energy and unleashes clean energy for all. Get involved in HKs Global Climate March event.
An opportunity for some fund raising
Posted by Peter MUIR
Coming up in November 12-14 DC will be hosting the ACAMIS U19 Volleyball tournament.
We will have a large number of student guests playing in the tournament (75 on Thursday and Friday and 120 on Saturday) and we would like to offer DC students the opportunity to sell goods to tournament participants with the purpose of raising funds for your chosen charity. Sales could be during morning break, lunch time and after school on Thursday and Friday, and all day Saturday. Sales could be food or drink items or other ideas such crafts or tournament memorabilia.
If you are interested please submit this proposal form. The Community Engagement Captains will then decide who is given the opportunity to hold a stall. Deadline is this Thursday November 5th.
UNICEF club Teacher Dress Up
Posted by Peter MUIR
Do you want to see your teachers dressed up in ridiculous costumes? From the 9th to the 13th, you will have the chance to vote for which teachers you want to see in hilarious costumes! Simply donate money towards whichever teacher you would like to vote for – and the 6 teachers who receives the most will wear a costume for one whole day the following week. Outfits include a school uniform, hula girl, a princess, a diver, a jester and even Dumbledore!!
All donations go to the UNICEF club, where proceeds will be forwarded to the Humanitarian Action for Children cause. Also great thanks from the UNICEF Club to the teachers who volunteered to dress up and support this cause!
Toothpaste Drive
Posted by Peter MUIR
Bring in some toothpaste to help oral hygiene in the less-privileged. Collection at the school entrance this week, Nov 2-5th
