'Ordinary mum' on an extraordinary mission
After visiting a Fuzhou orphanage in 2003, Elana Ho set up a charity that has since provided life-changing surgery for hundreds of sick kids
An early indication of the extent of Elana Ho Tsao Yuk-lan's devotion to children came in her mid-20s. The wife of a lawyer, and with two children of her own - including a daughter with special needs - Ho adopted her sister's three children.
"We had to change all the beds to bunk beds," says Ho. "I was 26 at the time. My husband, Dennis, had just qualified. My sister divorced and neither side wanted to take on the children."
So she did. Since then, Ho's work with orphanages on the mainland has resulted in hundreds of babies with cleft palates being given surgery and the chance of a much more positive future. Shockingly, babies with cleft palates are still abandoned by their families or left to starve to death, despite this being a straightforward medical process.
"In 2003, I went to see an orphanage in Fuzhou ," says Ho. "It was so sad and pitiful. More than 200 babies were all sick. I remember looking at an eight-month-old baby and she was telling me so much from her eyes. I felt so restless."
Ho looked around to provide fundraising for organisations already working in this area, "but their accounts were messy. With Starfish, there is zero management costs."