MORE attention should be paid to the personal development of Ip Sau-chun, a 12-year-old girl orphaned when her fishermen parents died in a tragedy at sea, a social worker said yesterday.
''Children at her age are less likely to talk things out, so they need more in-depth counselling,'' said Lam Ding-fung, officer-in-charge of the Butterfly Family Services Centre at Tuen Mun.
Sau-chun is the oldest of five children orphaned when their parents, Ip Kam-yau and Ng Kwai-ho, died eight months ago.
Readers of the South China Morning Post raised $1.5 million for the orphans.
Sau-chun says she now knows how to take care of herself and her four younger brother and sisters.
However, although she sometimes missed her parents, she had not cried, she said.
''I don't know why, but I just don't cry,'' she said yesterday at her Tuen Mun home.
