In an office on the top floor of Hong Kong’s Chungking Mansions, social worker Jeffrey Andrews has been serving ethnic minorities and refugees for a decade. Andrews, 33, of Indian origin, is the city’s first registered ethnic minority social worker. But 15 years ago, he was a troubled teenager with an identity crisis. “I got into trouble and was arrested. A social worker saved me. I am just trying to give back what was offered to me,” he says. Hong Kong-born and raised, Andrews speaks fluent Cantonese and English. But when he was young, he went to segregated schools where he found no way to pick up the local language. He also lacked a bond with his Indian roots. He can only speak limited Tamil – the language of Southern India and he sweats from eating spicy food. The first thing people see is your skin colour and you are labelled immediately … I asked my mum ‘Why did you give birth to me this colour? Jeffrey Andrews, social worker “Some of my Indian friends didn’t think I was Indian enough, while the Chinese friends I played football with didn’t think I was Chinese,” he recalls. “I was really struggling to understand who I was.” He used to be called racial slurs such as “a cha” – a Cantonese slur referring to South Asians. Even things as simple as hailing a taxi were hard. On buses and trains, parents told children to stay away, calling him a “black ghost”. “It hurts. The first thing people see is your skin colour and you are labelled immediately,” he says. “I asked my mum ‘Why did you give birth to me this colour?’” All this left the young man confused with no hope. Leaving school at 16, Andrews joined a triad society. He stopped going home or to church, thinking that was his path until two years later he was arrested for assault and stealing a mobile phone. Sitting in the police station, aged 18, he realised the seriousness of his situation, but little did he know it was a life-changer. The judge said ‘Young boy, why are you wasting your life away?’ It hit me. It woke me up Jeffrey Andrews Calls to his fellow gangsters went unanswered and afraid to tell his parents, Andrews called Fermi Wong, the founder of Hong Kong Unison – an NGO dedicated to ethnic minorities. “Jeffrey has a good nature and the potential to be a good leader,” says Wong, 48, a social worker with more than 20 years’ experience. “It was only confusion and uncertainty about the future that gripped him.” Wong met Andrews when he was in secondary school. She described him as a good footballer and dancer, willing to perform at events she organised. Receiving his call at 4am, Wong went to the police station to bail him out, found a lawyer for him and presented the court with reference letters. The judge gave him a binding-over order for a year and he left without a criminal record. “I remembered the judge said ‘Young boy, why are you wasting your life away?’” he recalls. “It hit me. It woke me up.” Every time I went to hospital [with an eye problem], I was told to wait because locals were the priority South Asian man, a client of Andrews’ After taking a few jobs, Andrews started as a community worker at NGO Christian Action in 2009. He says he wants to serve those who have similar experiences. “I know what they are going through. I know the feeling of being stateless, being a shadow, an outcast,” he says. In 2011, the Caritas Institute of Higher Education admitted Andrews into a four-year social work programme. He worked by day and studied at night, but the hard work paid off. He graduated with an associate degree in 2015 having become Hong Kong’s first registered ethnic minority social worker in 2014. Andrews meets 50 to 100 people from ethnic minorities and refugees every day who seek status recognition, fight for equal opportunities or simply want advice on a rice cooker. According to the 2016 population by-census, there were 584,383 ethnic minority residents in Hong Kong, 8 per cent of the city’s population. Life in Hong Kong is not easy for most ethnic minorities who face discrimination everywhere, Andrews says. “I have had this eye problem for two years. Every time I went to hospital, I was told to wait because locals were the priority,” says one of Andrews’ clients – a 40-year-old man from South Asia who fled religious persecution to Hong Kong six years ago. He has known Andrews since he arrived. “It was so difficult to live here, but Jeffrey has supported me all the time, with food, with hospital, with everything,” he says. Andrews’ mother died from breast cancer in 2013, but he and his father could not find a burial place because of her ethnicity. It took weeks before a priest learned about it and wrote to the Chinese Christian Cemetery on Pok Fu Lam Road which eventually found a place for his mother – the only ethnic minority person buried there. “It’s crazy. Even when you are dead, you are divided by skin colour,” he says. In 2016, Andrews received a commendation from Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah for his contribution towards racial harmony in Hong Kong. Andrews has seen changes, but looks forward to more. “We have ethnic minority firefighters and police officers. We hope for legislators, district councillors, doctors and nurses,” he says. “It’s better than it was 15 years ago, but can be so much more. “You still have to answer silly questions like ‘Oh, is your blood also red or is it black?’”