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TODAY'S charity walk will be fun for the participants and should also bring a little happiness to those who will benefit from the proceeds it raises.

  The beneficiaries will be the adults and children with hearing and visual disabilities who are looked after by two of Hong Kong's leading charitable institutions - the Ebenezer School and Home for the Blind and the Suen Mei Speech and Hearing Centre for the Deaf.

  By the time the territory reverts to China in 1997, the Ebenezer School and Home for the Blind will have helped people with visual disabilities in Hong Kong for 100 years.

  The charity is looking to the walkathon to help raise some of the $3 million it still needs to equip a new school building to be completed next year.

  So far, Ebenezer has raised $9 million of the $12 million it needs.

  The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club has contributed $64.5 million towards construction costs of the school.

  The new educational facility will be an addition to the current Ebenezer school which provides a general education for blind students referred to it by the government's Social Welfare and Education Department.

  An education and residential service for blind children is also provided.

  Retarded blind children receive residential training at the school and Ebenezer's Old Age Home has residential care and nursing facilities for aged blind women.

  The charity is at the forefront of the International Low Vision testing programme.

  The school's director Keith Marshall is co-ordinating the development of a new simplified kit for low vision testing which can be used by staff with little experience in this line of work.

  Currently, only highly qualified staff can carry out these tests.

  Ebenezer believes the kit will be particularly useful in developing countries.

  Ebenezer is an organisation with strong religious and German roots. Its activities are firmly based on Christian principles and it receives much practical and financial support from Hong Kong's German community, including the church-based Hildesheimer Blindenmission.

  The Suen Mei Speech and Hearing Centre for the Deaf is another church-supported charity though its origins are more recent than Ebenezer.

  Set up in 1981 as a pre-school project for deaf children, Suen Mei has a centre in Kowloon and a kindergarten.

  The centre is currently confined to 1,000 square feet of commercially rented property but aims to move into premises double the size.

  Following its slogan ''Deaf children do not have to be mute'', the Suen Mei Centre provides lip-reading, speech and auditory training for children.

      The intensive training is supported by early audiological testing of children and guidance for parents.

  By providing these services, Suen Mei helps deaf children to develop a language proficiency good enough to allow them to enter normal kindergartens and primary schools.

  In March this year, 18 children attended the Suen Mei kindergarten while 26 others were integrated into normal primary schools and a further 17 students into ordinary secondary schools.



Fun day will benefit less fortunate