A positive attitude is crucial if you want to become a social worker
Young Post: When did you enter the field as a social worker?
Yip: After I completed the social work degree course at Polytechnic University in 1996, I joined the Salvation Army as an outreach social worker for two years. My work mainly focused on youth issues.
In 2001 I joined Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service. A year later, I started working at the Multicultural Service Centre for South Asian ethnic minorities, which comes under Yang Memorial.
YP: What are your duties?
Y: I do counselling and outreach work. We also visit schools and organise special programmes. These include employment schemes, depending on the problems faced by ethnic minorities at the time. Through social adaptation programmes we aim to raise their awareness of the local government system, their rights and the facilities they are entitled to, with the goal of enhancing their sense of belonging towards Hong Kong. We also hope the activities could help introduce their culture to the local Chinese, so that different ethnic groups can live together in harmony.