Christine Fang Meng-sang, the woman who refuses to accept poverty
Christine Fang may be leaving her job at the helm of the Hong Kong Council of Social Services but she can't leave behind her commitment to fighting social injustice
It's about getting back to the basics for Christine Fang Meng-sang, the outgoing head of the much-respected Council of Social Service.
Together with quitting the council, she is also stepping down from all public posts.
But Fang, 55, did not seem like a woman ready to retire when she bounded into the meeting room for an interview with the South China Morning Post, full of indignation over the living conditions of cubicle flat dwellers reported in the Post the day before.
"This is unbelievable," she said. "When I first started [in the field,] we had these terrible housing conditions. I can't believe that 30 years later, some are still in the same difficult situation."
Known as a defender of the poor and a strong believer in empowering the people and eradicating poverty, Fang said the provision of welfare should be all about the necessity of human well-being and not about pity. After graduating with a degree in social work from the University of Hong Kong, Fang worked at the temporary housing area in Pak Tin for five years, doing co-ordination and community work.
At the time, the government could not build enough housing for everyone, and had to resort to temporary shelters which looked like pigsties, she said.
In Hong Kong, Fang said, public housing has always been a means of redistributing the society's resources to those in need.