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SCMP Reporter

A warning that a wave of welfare groups could close amid the financial crisis has been issued by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service after a lack of funding forced two member organisations to cease operating.
The council, now with 356 member groups, said it was a dangerous sign and urged the government to launch measures to encourage donations.
A disabled persons' mutual help group and a women's education group told the council earlier this month  that they had to cease operations.  Both were very small groups, each with one or two staff members.
'There happened to be member organisations leaving us, but I have never seen any doing so because of financial difficulties.
'It did not happen even during the Asian financial crisis or the Sars pandemic,' council chief executive Christine Fang Meng-sang said.
Declining to name the groups because she did not have their consent, Ms Fang said they could not afford to pay the council's HK$500 annual fees. 'Just a year ago, the disabled group mobilised its volunteers and raised funds for the council, but now they cannot even sustain their own services,' she said.
Both bodies have passed their duties to other organisations.
While government-funded charities and large welfare organisations tended to enjoy relatively stable financial resources, Ms Fang said mutual aid groups were most vulnerable to economic downturns because they relied heavily on donations. Small service centres at the district level were also at risk, she said.
She estimated that 80 per cent of welfare organisations in Hong Kong had not met their fund-raising targets last year and added that more might have to terminate their services if the situation persisted.
The council suggested that the government set up a matching donation fund similar to the matching-grant scheme for universities, so that private donors' contributions would have a multiplying effect.
It also suggested a HK$4 billion welfare package for the government budget, which it said could create more than 10,000 jobs and benefit several hundred thousand people in need.
The proposals include building more homes for the disabled and providing more nursing homes for  the elderly, creating 3,000 fresh graduate positions at  NGOs, and launching road-improvement works to build a barrier-free community for the disabled.
'The government always says it creates jobs by building infrastructure and launching works. Then why doesn't it build homes for  [the disabled and elderly], who have been in a queue for years? It has no planning at all,' Ms Fang said.
She has submitted the package to Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah,  who will deliver the budget on February 25.



NGOs stop operating amid financial woes