The challenges of being single and living alone
According to the Census and Statistics Department, the number of single-person households in Hong Kong has continued to rise over the past decade, up from 367,653 in 2006 to 459,015 in 2016. To put...
View ArticleInmates have rights that can’t be taken away
Recently, the pro-establishment camp has accused Dr. Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung of the Labor Party and myself of paying too many official visits to prisons in our capacity as lawmakers. Some have even...
View ArticleWho will look after those who look after others?
A heartbreaking tragedy struck on Oct. 9: a man murdered his own elderly mother and then jumped to his death from his home. He was alleged to have done so out of the unbearable stress of taking care of...
View ArticleTime to put Link REIT on a tight leash
Last month, pro-democracy parties such as the Democratic Party, Demosistō, the League of Social Democrats, the Neighborhood and Worker’s Service Center, the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and...
View ArticleRethinking society’s relationship with the underclass
“Low class” has recently become a hot topic in China, only that it is not used to refer to a market or a product but a group of people. Soon after a big fire in Beijing last month, the authorities in...
View ArticleThree little stories that reveal HK’s poor social welfare status
As far as the social welfare sector is concerned, 2017 might have been an eventful year. A former director of the Social Welfare Department was elected chief executive, a pan-democratic figure with a...
View ArticleTeach our students how to live a good life and die a good death
If the purpose of standard working hours is to protect workers’ rights and enable them to achieve work-life balance, then the purpose of standard learning hours would be to protect students’ life and...
View ArticleChild poverty and deprivation: another form of abuse
In response to the recent wave of child abuse incidents in our city, the Legislative Council has held two special meetings — one held by the Subcommittee on Children’s Rights, and the other by the...
View ArticleWhat should we do about our ‘McRefugees’?
In Hong Kong, there are many ways to refer to homeless people. The government would often call them “street sleepers”, while many citizens would refer to them as “drifters” or “vagrants”. As far as I...
View ArticleSocial workers care for others, but who cares for them?
The International Day of Peace is observed annually on Sept. 21, the World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, the International Children’s Day on June 1, and the World Sleep Day on March 16. There’s also Global...
View ArticleWe must say no to the NIMBY mentality
Recently, we had news that a real-estate developer had turned down a request made by the Social Welfare Department to provide space for building a community support center for autistic patients, among...
View ArticleGovernment must step up support for SEN students
I just would like to let readers know that I myself used to be a student with special education needs (SEN): I had a stuttering problem when I was a child. I always chose to remain silent in school. I...
View ArticleWhy one social worker for every secondary school is not enough
The development of school social work service in Hong Kong has been a long, bumpy ride. Back in the early 1970s, social work services in primary and secondary schools were predominantly provided by...
View ArticlePromoting living wage in Hong Kong
Recently, Oxfam Hong Kong and the Centre for Quality of Life under the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese University jointly published the “Hong Kong Living Wage Report”, which...
View ArticleTime to address the woes of caregivers
On Feb. 22, the Legislative Council panel on welfare services held a special meeting to discuss the issue of “support for carers of elderly persons and of persons with disabilities”. During the...
View ArticleWill the mindset of our authorities ever change?
The Stanley Prison, where I am now serving an eight-month jail sentence on charges related to the 2014 Occupy pro-democracy protests, has been notorious for the unbearable heat and poor ventilation in...
View ArticleBetter for the people to forget and move on?
Multiple news reports, along with video footage, have indicated that the police were either looking the other way when the indiscriminate attacks against civilians at the Yuen Long MTR station took...
View ArticleWhat the old-timers would never understand
Annie Wu Suk-ching, the eldest daughter of the founder of the catering giant Maxim’s Group, recently told the Global Times in an interview that she has given up hope on all those young people who are...
View ArticleWhy social workers are getting very angry
On Nov. 17, the Legislative Council’s Panel on Welfare Services held a public hearing on the welfare of those affected by the political crisis that has gripped the city since June. As we all know, Hong...
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