Hybrids and Humanitarian Organizations - Part 2

Security Guard trainees learn the ins-and-outs of using an industrial fire extinguisher.Last week I wrote that you'd be hard pressed to believe Hong Kong was ever host to tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees as new construction has now erased almost all evidence of  the camps.  Yet if you were to have told me back then that Christian Action would grow from being a purely local humanitarian organization into one Hong Kong's most cutting edge Training Bodies I would have laughed silly!

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Hybrids and Humanitarian Organizations

Children of Section 9, Whitehead Detention Center, Hong Kong. 1995In my job as Executive Director you can't help but be captivated by the orphans we help in China.  But serving children is not new for Christian Action - it actually stretches back to our earliest days when...

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When Should You Stop Helping?

Six years ago I lay awake at night vexed by the question : “When should you stop helping?”. The young orphan Ruo Ruo, pictured above, suffered from a life threatening condition that needed immediate attention. She was operated on in Xining. When that failed we flew her to Shanghai. And when that surgery failed we flew her to Hong Kong. My colleagues in other organizations ‘tut-tutted’ the extravagance: all up, by the end of 2003, we had spent HK$ 500,000 to save her life. When should you stop helping?

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Through A Photographer's Lens

If you enjoy photography then this weekʼs blog post is for you!  Fourteen years ago I sent my former Senior Manager Adam Voysey to investigate the possibility of Christian Action assisting the government of Qinghai Province with its orphanage and poverty alleviation work.  The trip was so successful that this year marks our 11th anniversary of co-managing the Xining Childrenʼs Home. Today I have asked Adam, who is now a US based photographer, to share a few pictures he has taken for us over the years. Enjoy!

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Hong Kong's Refugees

A survivor of the brutal Sri Lankan conflict holds an atlas showing her former island home. She is now in Hong Kong, being helped by Christian Action.Having successfully fled the brutalities of wars in African and South Asian countries, refugees who make it to Hong Kong find themselves stranded, often for years,  while they await refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees.  They  are men, women and unaccompanied minors -  but seldom do they arrive with their family intact.   The conflict and chaos they have escaped often leave them traumatized, and because Hong Kong’s immigration laws prevent them from seeking employment here, they also suffer from economic hardships and consequently depression.  Christian Action is the only non profit organization providing Hong Kong’s refugees with a holistic range of services. We are helped by a committed group of volunteers.

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