Group urges volunteers to take a hands-on approach in the community
Local charity focuses on helping disabled people as well as linking people who want to give their time to the community with needy causes
Question: What do fruit baskets, puppets and soap all have in common? Answer: they are all innocuous objects that can be used to help serve the community with the help of HandsOn, a local charity that links volunteers to grassroots NGOs.
Started eight years ago, the Hong Kong branch of HandsOn arranges volunteering events for locals and expatriates, linking individuals and companies with charities that support refugees, the elderly, migrant workers and the disabled as well as those specialising in environmental issues or child development.
This year the charity has set its sights on a new goal: helping to find employment for people with mental disabilities by distributing fruit baskets. Hongkongers with conditions such as Down's syndrome and autism will be able to feel more integrated in society by helping to sell fruit to office workers.
As a beneficiary of this year's Operation Santa Claus, a fundraising event jointly organised by the South China Morning Post and RTHK, HandsOn will train individuals with intellectual disabilities to do the work.
HandsOn executive director Caroline Sprod, who moved from Britain to Hong Kong eight years ago and spends her free time volunteering for animal-rights charities, says people with mental disabilities make up one to 1.3 per cent of Hong Kong's population.
But much of society has a limited understanding of how to communicate with the affected, who are sometimes mistaken for people with mental health issues or physical disabilities, she says.