The motley but passionate crew making a difference at the Crossroads Foundation

A quick potted history of the Crossroads Foundation. A kind and caring couple, both accountants – Malcolm and Sally Begbie - from Australia are asked to provide aid to flood victims on the mainland back in the 1990s. They put out an alert and are inundated with goods. They see potential in Hong Kong for goods and services to be used to serve the needy in our city and around the world.

So goods are matched with those who need them in Hong Kong – about 50 per cent – and shipping firms for the other goods to be transported elsewhere and that’s how Crossroads International, now known as the Crossroads Foundation starts. And the entire Begbie family joins in.

But then … the organisation grows. It has more than 80 employees and hundreds of volunteers at its facilities in Tuen Mun. They create “Xperiences” – that thousands of schoolchildren and businesspeople visit – to feel what it is like to be blind; to live with HIV; to be poverty-stricken or a refugee. The charity also teams up with the United Nations to create a state of the art website

Enter Matthew Gow and Kate Falconer, both of whom had promising corporate careers, but decided to forego a healthy salary, to work for Crossroads and make a difference. Both have been nominated for the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards by Hong Kong fashion designer Barney Cheng for their selfless desire to help those in need. Gow’s background is in information technology. “I worked previously with Digital, then Hewlett-Packard. I worked in the IT services at ING Bank or Mercantile Mutual and SAP the German software company, working as a business analyst,” says Australian Gow, 35. “I was finishing up a contract in Sydney when I saw Sally Begbie speak.”

And that was the end of his lucrative career. Gow is now a veteran of Crossroads, having worked there for 12 years.