How will Hong Kong respond to crises? Revamped home and youth affairs bureau promises volunteer network, emergency stockpiles for quick community action
- Alice Mak emphasises need for ‘district services and community care teams’, first proposed by new city leader
- She brushes aside concerns that it duplicates roles in existing agencies, says more details will be revealed in John Lee’s maiden policy address on October 19
Hong Kong’s revamped home and youth affairs bureau plans to stockpile emergency supplies and build a new network of volunteers to raise community mobilisation abilities in crises.
But Alice Mak Mei-kuen, in her first interview with the Post three weeks after she was appointed Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, brushed aside concerns that these groups, established across 18 districts, were a duplication of roles in existing organisations.
“Now we rely on district councillors and organisations to render immediate support to the community, but it has been challenging for the government to get an accurate estimate of the number of people we could mobilise in cases of emergency,” Mak said on Thursday.
The 51-year-old, who served as a district councillor for 25 years before she was made responsible for the direction of the city’s district administration, sought to justify the need for “district services and community care teams”.
The term was first proposed by new Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu in his manifesto in April.
“We shall no longer solely rely on the government’s power to address district needs during urgent situations. What we are building is not only a network of volunteers, but also a system to better mobilise resources in a timely manner,” said Mak, a veteran member of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions.