Testimonies
Feb 8 2018 looked like an ordinary date but the two-hour
outreach visit made it an unforgettable one.
After school, we followed our teacher to
Western District to experience the unveiled mask of this colorful city.
I think that you would be familiar with
the words of wood partitioned room. It means that a Chinese private residential
flat that accommodates a lot of residents. Usually these residents have an
untold story.
Walking on the pedestrian, there were
glittering buildings for the rich on the left and there were shabby buildings
for the poor on the right. Walking upstairs, we could see a narrow corridor with
dim lights. There were a lot of bags of rubbish placing aside and the two sides
were closed doors.
I remember that my first outreach target
was a middle aged mom. She told us that her daughter was in high school and
facing her final examination. She tried her best to spend the savings on the
tutorial fee and hoped that her daughter could use her knowledge to change her
future. Then her daughter could grow up and earn more money to improve their
living condition. In her eyes, I could feel her despair despite of her smile.
As an ordinary student, I can do nothing for her. I only
hope that her daughter is tough enough to continue to prepare for her
examination but not let the fate determine her future. Such belief can help her
breakthrough her limitations which will lead her to the path towards a bright
future.
King George V School (The article was written in
Chinese)
_________________________________________________________________________________
The St Barnabas’ society and home dedicates itself to
helping the poor and unfortunate who call the centre their home, through
providing support for them and distributing meals. A group of students and I
decided to help out with their weekly visits to the people living in wooden
partition homes, and build our CAS project around this experience. What started
as a hurdle we had cross for our diplomas soon became an experience many of us
will never forget.
Many of us had simply never realised the
state of Hong Kong’s poverty issue. Of course, a lot of us had heard of the
infamous cage homes and the over population in our city, but we had never seen
these issues up close and personal. Our first visit began with one of the
residents of a partitioned home leaving the complex, and upon seeing us,
remarked “Kids shouldn’t be here, they do cocaine up there!” Nonetheless, we
continued on and met many people from all walks of life that had ended up here
in this crowed flat, with up to 20 people sharing a single bathroom. I remember
a conversation I had with a senior gentlemen, who used to teach before the
Handover in 1997. I remember feeling such pity for him, a man who was as
well-read as he to be in a situation such as this. Despite the conditions he
lived in, he greeted us with a warm smile, and happily talked with us about our
ambitions for the future.
Many people who live in these partitioned homes are not
here just because of their economic situation. They are usually accompanied with
other problems such as drugs or uncompromised family relations. Visits that the
St Barnabas’ Society and Home provides allows students such as us to open our
eyes to the real world and see how many people are swept over by the unforgiving
torrent of society.
(Note: the views expressed
are only those of the above writers and speakers, and not our views.)