SUPPORTING THE LOW INCOME FAMILIES PROJECT (家友加油支援計劃)

http://www.soco.org.hk/ffs.htm

in Hong Kong. Among them, near 600,000 live off CSSA, the others are low income families. It is estimated that there are near 300,000 of them are low income or CSSA families with children. For these poor families, they suffer from not only financial difficulty, but also social isolation and poor family relationship as they lack of social network and resources. Consequently, domestic violence happened and the children suffer the most. The development of these children is sadly compromised.
According to the Statistics, the number of domestic violence is increased from 1,009 in 1998 to over 4,000 in 2006. Family economic problem is one of the significant reasons. It is found that most of the parents have low education background. Most of the abusers are Father and are the breadwinner of the family. They feel powerless and frustrated when they are unemployed or cannot support the whole family expenditure. The mothers, many of them are new immigrants from the Mainland China. Many new immigrant women have great difficulties in adjusting to the new society. Many of them are from the villages in the Mainland China and have received little education. Being uprooted from their network of friends and relatives, they are socially marginalized, as many do not speak the local Cantonese dialect and having little knowledge of the community resources and services in Hong Kong. Worse still, they commonly share negative self-image, being stigmatized as unintelligent and burdens of society. Therefore, many new immigrant women do not know how to seek help when they are prone to violence. Over 80% of them are new immigrant women in refuges. They need special services. 

There are about 360,000 children living in poverty in Hong Kong. Children living in such poor family background, they lack of resources and proper guidance. According to the surveys from NGOs and SoCO, it was found that these underprivileged children are low in self-esteem and their psychological and physical as well as social development is undermined.

For these low income families, they need holistic help. A holistic intervention approach should be adopted to help these low income families. Father, Mother and children all should be helped and trained to participate in community services, school communication, parenting skills and integration with community. Supporting network in employment, study, social integration should be built up for them.

1. Social integration and family guidance through One-To-One care - Family Friendship Scheme
Aims of the scheme:

The scheme recruits resourceful and educated volunteer from the community and professional groups to serve as a friend to provide guidance and emotional support to the low income family. Family friend also act as gatekeepers against domestic violence.

The Content of the Scheme:

Training and group activities will be provided for recruited family volunteers to carry out services in an effective way. One volunteer family will closely mentor one low income family, and they are expected to guide or provide the low income with opportunities or resources to improve their problem-solving ability, access to community resources, widening of exposure, improved standard of living, family relationship. Monthly contact is required. The minimum service commitment is one year. Group activities will be organized every three months.

Download Application Form
2. Supporting services - Family Learning Centre
It aims to set up a family learning centre to provide Hong Kong orientation, parenting and employment training courses to parents so as to empower the parents and train up their job skills. A Family Learning Centre will be set up in a poor district - Sham Shui Po. Parenting and job skills training courses, will be provided freely.
Download Application Form
3. Financial Aid
The bridging-fund is used to provide designated assistance on special or emergency needs on those areas not covered under the existing welfare system. The scope of assistance is as followings:

• Types of the assistance

• Emergency assistance

e.g. rental fee for temporary stay, food expenses, basic wearing, transportation fee.

• Assistance for items excluded in CSSA

e.g. learning expenses, milk powder voucher, recreational voucher, telephone installation charge, telephone charge, rent deposit, moving subsidy, glasses subsidy, and other basic daily expenses.
If you would like to join the above task(s), please fill in the respective application forms and send it by fax (2761 3326) or by email (soco@pacific.net.hk) for our further arrangement. For enquires, please feel free to contact our social worker, Miss. SZE Lai-shan or Mr. WONG Chi-yuen at 2713-9165.