Helping hand for needy children
For children who have lost one or both parents to Aids, the Chi Heng Foundation is there to help, paying school fees, subsidising living costs, and best of all, offering hope for a better future.
Many Aids-affected children live in rural areas of the mainland, where the sale of blood in the 1990s spread the disease, sometimes ravaging whole villages.
The foundation believes education is the way for them to move out of poverty.
With the help of Operation Santa Claus (OSC), it now plans to launch a new project, 'A Future through Vocational Training', which aims to help 170 junior high school students find out what they want to do with their lives.
Jointly organised by the South China Morning Post and RTHK, OSC has supported more than 100 different charities over the years, changing lives for the better for those most in need of help.
Kan Wang-hoi, financial controller of the Chi Heng Foundation, hopes the project will allow young people - who are not getting good enough grades to attend senior high school - to fulfil their potential and help support their families.
He said: 'Young people often feel lost about what to do in life. With funding from OSC, we plan to employ three staff to advise and counsel junior high school students, to engage them with vocational training that they are interested in so as to prepare them for the future.
'Part of the funding will also go to paying the school fees and living subsidy support for the students.'
Kan said students need the advisory service because their parents cannot provide guidance for them. 'Going to college may not be the route for them, so it is important we help them find another way,' he said.
'After getting adequate vocational training, they can be skilled workers in factories to help support the family.
'There are many vocational training schools and courses and we need to help them make the right choice.'
