The teacher giving disadvantaged youths hope for a brighter future
Gilbert Chow Yun-cheung, 67, a former airline executive, is finding new purpose in retirement as a volunteer teacher at the Society for Community Organisation
On a sweltering afternoon, a large, middle-aged man sits chatting with a woman in a corridor. He tells her she’s lucky, because, touch wood, if anything happens to her, at least she has a husband to look after her child.
“I’m sick as a dog,” the man says, “but I’m all she’s got.”
He is referring to his eight-year-old daughter, whose squeak of “Bye bye, Chow sir!” can be heard from where they are sitting.
He sighs. “I have to take her to class here, or she’ll end up like us, poor for life.”
Across the very narrow corridor is the Sham Shui Po office of the Society for Community Organisation, where an English class is being held by Gilbert Chow Yun-cheung, 67, a retiree who used to head the local operations of an American airline. Here, he teaches, for free, phonics and basic grammar, aiming to provide the children with some building blocks for the language – something they are not taught in school.