Enrichment Week 2013-2014 - F3 & 4 Service Outreach
This is the fifth year we have organized service outreach programmes for our Form 3 and Form 4 students during their post-exam period before the summer holiday. As the focus of last year was the sustainability of SOWing and spreading of the seeds of service, it seems appropriate that a fifth anniversary may be celebrated by giving wooden objects, and is sometimes known as the ‘wood’ anniversary. It is our hope that the seeds of service have indeed taken root and are growing into trees that bring shade to many people.
Local SOWs
This year we continued building up our focus ministries, namely Education and Food Distribution. We were fortunate to work with Food Angel for the first time this year and hope to develop a long-term partnership with this organization.
After expanding our English teaching ministry to the children in Chau Cheung and our assistance to the elderly in Tung Chung last year, we are setting foot in the northern New Territories this year, working with a primary school in Tin Shui Wai for their English Day programme. Besides teaching English, our students also taught cheerleading to primary pupils in Northern Lamma School after winning the Silver Award in the 18 Districts Cheering Team Competition on July 1st, 2014.
We continued our visitation to the homeless in Sham Shui Po. This year we collaborated with Feeding Hong Kong, collecting bread from various bakeries and distributing it to the homeless the next day. A group of students went to Chai Wan to deliver dinner boxes provided by Food Angel to elderly people living alone. Besides education and food redistribution, the Crossroads ministry and Beach and Country Parks Clean Up challenged our students to think about global issues such as the wealth gap and global warming.
Outbound SOWs
Our partnership last year with Shalom Tours Mission, a Cambodian service organization in Phnom Penh, was such a great success that we decided to expand the size of the team going to Cambodia. Besides the expansion in the Cambodian SOW, two teams were sent to Taiwan this year.
As Hong Kong is part of China, we always want to go to the mainland to serve our fellow. After not having a China trip for one year, this year we went to Qingyuan to work with the local farmers and help furnish a children’s library.
YMCA of Vietnam has been one of the longest-term partner organizations for our SOW. However, due to a Red Outbound Travel Advisory raised against Vietnam in mid-May, we decided to cancel the trip. Though the trip is canceled, the students who signed up for it originally have been faithful in raising money for the building project and hope that they can return to Vietnam one day.
