bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

When WONG Chun-fung was a small boy, he came down with a high fever. His mum told him to try to put up with the pain. She wasn't neglecting her son, she just didn't have enough money to pay for a visit to the doctor.

Chun-fung's story about his illness a few years ago has won a prize in the Anti-Poverty Project for Youngsters campaign.

The campaign is an ongoing project organised by the Christian Family Service Centre and the Federation of Parent Teacher Associations In Kwun Tong District.

The recent competition invited primary and secondary students to come up with anti-poverty tips via short essays and drawings addressed to Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen.

The  best entries  are being compiled into a book due to be published later this month. The book will be sent to schools in Kwun Tong and public libraries.

Despite the economic recovery, many people in Hong Kong are still living in poverty. According to government statistics, in 2004 there were 64,789 welfare recipients living in Kwun Tong. Of these, 19,479 were aged 21 or younger.

These alarming figures render the area one of the poorest communities in the city, along with Sham Shui Po and some other old districts.

And if you are born poor, it is very difficult to break free from the vicious cycle:  struggling parents usually lack the financial resources to provide the best education for their children to compete with students from middle-class or wealthy families.

'I am honest with my children - I  tell them I have no money for them to spend on tutorial classes or extracurricular activities,' said Wong Siu Nei-yuet, Chun-fung's mother.

'If they don't study well they will just have to quit school after Form Three.'

Other award-winning participants in the competition offered tips on how we can all help the less fortunate.

Pok Ka-wing, 13, winner of the secondary school category, advised every primary and secondary student  to donate a dollar a day to raise money for the poor.

'The money can be given to students who cannot afford  textbooks, or to the elderly people who earn a living by picking up cardboard boxes on the streets,' said Ka-wing.

Jojo Wong Kam-yi, 10, urged the government to give poor children  Octopus cards so that they could travel for free. Charities could set up accounts to cover the cost of the cards.

'I have a friend who couldn't afford to pay HK$22 for a school trip to the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences,' said  Jojo.

Lucas Tong Zhi-xian, nine, devised a hi-tech operation that involved setting up hygienic vacuum barrels in every building to collect leftovers. The collected food will then be transported to nearby food processing companies to be reheated or cooked and repackaged (to make sure they are fresh and tasty, according to Lucas) before being sent to poor families.

'In the past, I rarely finished my meals, leaving at least half  when I ate out. I never knew  what happened to the leftovers until  I watched a TV a programme that showed the food ending up in landfills. It is such a waste.'

Suki Tam Chau-yin, a social worker at the centre, said the competition could help students better understand the problem of poverty in Hong Kong while realising that they have the ability to help improve the situation.

'In the past, many people held the opinion that poor people only had themselves to blame.  But after the students think carefully and pool their ideas,  they can see that poverty may not be the result of personal problems - there are also social and environmental factors involved.'

Want to read more anti-poverty tips? They will be available on www.cfsc.org.hk in mid-March



Fight poverty