Gwen Kao starts Alzheimer's charity
The wife of Alzheimer's-afflicted Nobel physics laureate Charles Kao Kuen is setting up a charity to raise awareness of the disease and promote better support for people who care for sufferers.
Gwen Kao Wong May-wan will chair the Charles K. Kao Foundation for Alzheimer's Disease, a non-profit organisation she hopes will help find a cure for the condition. Kao, known as the father of fibre optics, was diagnosed with the disease in 2004.
Wong, who earlier this year publicly urged the government to provide more resources for day care for dementia patients, said the idea for the foundation came after Kao's Nobel award last year put him at the centre of international media attention.
'I thought I could make use of the publicity and turn it into something more meaningful,' she said. 'There is a lack of knowledge of the disease. People don't know what to do with it; doctors don't get training in how to treat it, resulting in many people sweeping it under the carpet.
'People in the early days just tranquillised the patients. It's a bit like what cancer was decades ago, when it seemed to be a hidden, shameful ailment. But it's come into the open now and cures for some common forms of cancer have been found.
'Only if everyone is aware of this terrible disease will we find a cure.'
The foundation, to be inaugurated on Tuesday, World Alzheimer's Day, will launch programmes to support care givers, raise public awareness and encourage co-operation among organisations to ensure resources are shared efficiently.
Wong, with the help of three close friends, will also lobby for government support even though 'a lot of it should be the government's responsibility, actually'. The friends have recruited many other volunteers willing to help in different areas.
The Jockey Club is providing the venue for the inauguration.
William Lo Wing-yan, one of the three friends who will be governors of the group, said they had not yet set objectives for the amount to be raised but early indications were hopeful. Lo, founder of the internet service provider Netvigator, worked with Kao when he was a consultant to Hong Kong Telecom. The other two friends are Angelina Lee Pui-ling and Alan Tong Sai-wong.
Other governors include Chinese University vice-chancellor Professor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu and University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor and president Professor Tsui Lap-chee.
Wong said Kao had 'forgotten how to do many of the tasks he used to do with his eyes shut', but he knew the foundation under his name was being set up. 'When I talked to him about it he would say 'Good! Good!''
Wong said that in looking after her husband, she sometimes felt frustrated and was under much pressure. 'Sometimes I'd throw dishes to release the pressure ... that's why I understand how carers must feel. They need professional advice and support,' she said.
More than 70,000 Hongkongers had Alzheimer's but there were only a few thousand carers, she said.
The couple, who settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, had intended to be in Hong Kong just for a series of celebration events to mark Kao's Nobel prize. But Wong said they had readjusted once more to life in their former long-term home.
A set of postal souvenirs in honour of Kao will also be issued on Tuesday as a tribute.
Kao jointly won the prize in October last year for his role in developing fibre-optic communications.
