Local companies are being urged to forge partnerships with welfare groups to help build bridges in Hong Kong's 'increasingly divided society'.
Bernard Charnwut Chan, a member of the 'Breakfast Group' of non-affiliated legislators and chairman of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, said businesses should do more than write cheques for welfare services.
Speaking on RTHK yesterday, Mr Chan said the September 11 terrorist attacks had pulled people together in the United States. 'We must accept there seems to be a problem. Hong Kong is an extremely divided community,' he said.
'But it is more than a difference in incomes. We live in completely different worlds. The rich and the poor use different schools, they live in different neighbourhoods. Most seriously perhaps, they have different futures to look forward to.
'The unskilled are in danger of falling further behind, and they know it.'
Mr Chan said firms could help by sending executives to share their management and information technology expertise with welfare workers in non-governmental bodies.