The scheme also gave her HK$5,000 to spend on her own development. She chose to sign up for private singing lessons, but will have to stop when the money runs out.

She was assigned a mentor, a marketing professional in her thirties, but Wong said the pair seldom met or spoke.

She hoped the scheme would continue and improve, with more allowances for her daughter’s tutorial classes, and that she would meet her mentor more regularly.

“I hope my children will have a good life,” Wong said.

For poor children in Hong Kong, the chances of breaking out of the loop of intergenerational poverty appeared slim, no matter how hard they worked.

Experts and social workers blamed the city’s widening wealth disparity, a lack of support for the children and their families and the absence of a comprehensive policy targeting the issue.

Some welcomed new efforts including the Strive and Rise Programme, but said such measures were only “a drop in the bucket”, too limited in their scope.

“The harmful consequences of child poverty persist in the long term not only for affected individuals, but also for societies, economies and future generations,” said Judy Chen, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Committee for Unicef.

Urging the authorities and community to do more, she said poor children faced risks and challenges in trying to break out of their family circumstances.

Hong Kong to open ‘community living rooms’ for children living in subdivided flats

Child poverty has worsened

Oxfam Hong Kong’s Wong Shek-hung said child poverty had worsened with the widening rich-poor gap, especially over the past three years of the pandemic.

The charity analysed official data and found that the city’s top earners made 47.3 times more than those at the bottom.

The median monthly income of the bottom 10 per cent of households shrank by more than a fifth from HK$3,500 in 2019 to HK$2,700 between January and March last year, while the median monthly income of the top 10 per cent rose from HK$120,000 to HK$127,600.

Wong, director of the charity’s Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Programme, said poor economic and living conditions were the main barriers preventing poor children from doing as well as their wealthier peers.

Life in Hong Kong’s shoebox housing

Poor students felt the negative impact of the pandemic more deeply than others because they lacked resources to catch up with peers who were well off or had highly educated parents who could offer help, she added.

Emeritus professor Cecilia Chan Lai-wan, of the department of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said intergenerational poverty existed in many places, but the particularly low minimum wage in Hong Kong, set at HK$40 an hour, gave rise to more working poor people who did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

The children of poor families had no extra money for their development, while living in tiny spaces like cubicles denied them physical activities, she said. They were also exposed to more domestic conflict and violence resulting from their families’ financial struggles.

“Their poor growth environment can stifle their dreams, and they will not develop hope for the future,” she said.

Even a university degree did not guarantee a good life, she said, as graduate incomes could not catch up with soaring home prices and rents.

02:58

Hong Kong financial secretary visits low-income people in Sham Shui Po

Hong Kong financial secretary visits low-income people in Sham Shui Po

‘Help needs to be long-term’

The government has tried various ways to uplift poor children over the years.

The Child Development Fund was introduced as far back as 2008 to address intergenerational poverty. Since then, HK$900 million has gone into rolling out 312 projects to help more than 26,000 poor children, according to official data.

The Strive and Rise Programme was the first initiative and through it, the government works with NGOs and private companies to provide training, mentorship and financial support to poor secondary school students.

A total of 2,800 students in Form One to Three were picked for the first round, which lasts a year. Each receives HK$5,000 at the start of the programme and again at the end, and is paired with a volunteer mentor.

The programme organised 27 orientation activities, 164 basic training sessions, and 93 group activities as of the end of February.

A survey of 333 low-income families early this year by the Alliance for Children Development Rights, a community organisation of social workers and parents, found that more than three in four did not make use of the Child Development Fund or the Strive and Rise Programme.

Most were unaware of the schemes, but some complained it was hard to benefit because of the limited spaces available.

Of the 80 children enrolled in the schemes, more than one in four had not met their mentors in the three months before the survey.

Ho Yu-ying, a member of the group, said the schemes were too similar and the quotas kept many children out. Most of the mentors were prominent businessmen and executives who had little time for the students, she added.

“The government wants to alleviate poverty, but the support needs to be long-term,” she said, urging the authorities to increase the quota, extend the duration and recruit mentors with more diverse backgrounds to meet students’ different needs.

A spokesman of the Social Welfare Department told the Post that the authorities would evaluate the Strive and Rise scheme before the first round ended and make improvements, including its positioning alongside the Child Development Fund.

To tackle poverty, the Hong Kong government must learn from Beijing

Teen’s inspiring week in a law firm

Jessie Li Wing-lam, 22, a bus driver’s daughter, is a success story. She grew up in a public housing flat with her parents and younger sister, relying mainly on her father’s income of HK$25,000 a month.

Education allowances of about HK$2,500 a year allowed her to buy a laptop and pay for tutorial classes, and she won citywide competitions for free exchanges to Germany and Britain.

Li was in Form Four when she set her sights on a career in law, but had no guidance from her family or friends.

In August 2018, she was referred through the Child Development Fund to the Child Development Initiative Alliance, a charity which helped poor students through workplace training and internships.

Li spent a week at an established law firm, where she learned about its different sections and met lawyers specialising in various legal areas.

That brief attachment was enough to steel her determination to pursue her dream. She is now a Year Four student at HKU, on her way to receiving a double degree in social sciences and laws.

“I have become more confident and determined to move upwards and escape poverty,” Li said, adding that students from poor families needed more opportunities and career guidance to beat their circumstances.

Amy Chan Kung Wai-ying, chairwoman of the alliance that helped Li, said the most effective way of helping children beat poverty was by providing them opportunities because they lacked social networks and exposure.

Her organisation’s programme, for poor students aged 16 to 20, helped them discover their interests and provided training before sending them to the workplace for about a week.

It has benefited about 2,000 students since 2014 and has a network of about 400 employers, including businesses, NGOs and government departments.

Chan said most of the students went on to find stable jobs they liked.

“At least they have taken the first step out of poverty,” she said.

Good ideas from Taiwan, Singapore

Experts and social workers called for more support for Hong Kong’s poor children and also urged the government to review its measures.

The government, businesses and parents could all contribute to the account until a child reached 18 years old, with the funds used for education, vocational training, finding jobs or starting businesses, she said.

Priscilla Lui Tsang Sun-kai, a former non-official member of the Commission on Children, said the government should invest more to equip young people with academic and social skills, while the business sector could do more through donations and welcoming youngsters to their companies to learn.

He urged the authorities to conduct extensive research to find out the needs of poor children and design targeted programmes with clear objectives.

“Intergenerational poverty cannot be eliminated simply through an individual programme,” he said.

*Name changed at interviewee’s request.