Hong Kong charity connecting visually impaired ambassadors with anxiety-stricken seniors to receive funding from Operation Santa Claus
- The ‘We Care’ project, launched by the Dialogue in the Dark (HK) Foundation, is helping isolated seniors cope with the pandemic
- It will soon receive additional funding from Operation Santa Claus, an annual fundraiser organised by the Post and public broadcaster RTHK
Diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease in 2000, Alsa Kwok King’s vision has since worsened to the point that she cannot see anything clearly, even up close.
But that has never stopped the 60-year-old from serving the underprivileged in society.
Since March last year, Kwok – who lives with macular disease, which affects the centre of the retina – has been chatting with elderly people on the phone, patiently listening to their worries and troubles.
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The initiative was launched by the Dialogue in the Dark (HK) Foundation, a social enterprise that organises immersive activities that have given the sighted a taste of the daily lives of the blind since 2010.
After closing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the experience centre pivoted to distributing pandemic-related supplies to the elderly.
Dialogue in the Dark CEO Cora Chu Yuet-yu said they came up with the We Care project in conjunction with the Hong Kong Society for the Aged after considering the strong suits of their visually impaired employees – which included their pleasant voices.
“They have excellent listening skills and are good at holding empathetic conversations,” she said.
“We would call and tell [the elderly people] about sanitary measures and how to correctly use the [anti-pandemic] supplies, and remind them repeatedly of other important information.”
The project has since served around 5,000 elderly people, and with support from OSC, it will benefit another 1,800 over the next nine months. Each participant will receive four 10- to 20-minute calls over the course of a month, while those who need more emotional assistance will be referred to a counselling team.
According to Chu, most of the elderly participants became happier and less anxious about the pandemic, as the calls provided them with accurate information and positive messages that helped them understand the situation.
She said the visually impaired ambassadors also acted as role models to the elderly.
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“Some of them are able to build bonds and empathy with the visually impaired ambassadors, as they have also experienced the loss of sight,” she said. “The elderly see how [the volunteers] overcame their disabilities and became ambassadors.”
Alsa Kwok’s most memorable experience with the project was when she successfully convinced an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease to attend a follow-up consultation with her doctor.
“She could not step out of the house because of the pandemic, which impacted her emotions. She refused to go out or eat, and even told her daughter that she wanted to die,” she recalled.
“So when she received my call, I asked what was going on and told her to visit the doctor. She finally agreed to go … I realised by showing care through my words, I can really help them.”
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The woman’s daughter noticed her mother smiled more and had a better appetite after the call, Kwok added, which showed that the simple act of listening meant a lot to the elderly.
Chu said the project epitomised the mission of the charity: engaging “people of differences”, or those with disabilities such as blindness and deafness, to create a social impact.
“We are also able to utilise our resources through our people of differences and distribute them to needy people,” she said.
“It creates a ripple effect, which further spreads the impacts of our organisation to more people in society.”
