HOPE Worldwide Hong Kong
Mission
HOPE worldwide is an international Christian charity that brings people and communities together to deliver sustainable and high-impact education and health services to the poor and needy.
History
The International Churches of Christ founded HOPE worldwide in 1991, in response to the Scriptures’ call to serve the poor and needy throughout the world. Its non-sectarian programmes provide education to disadvantaged children, job and life skills training to the poor, medical services to the sick, and help the elderly to age more healthily and with dignity. Today, HOPE worldwide and its affiliates and chapters serve more than 2 million people on every inhabited continent every year.
HOPE worldwide established the affiliate in Hong Kong in 1993 to serve the poor in Hong Kong and China. The affiliate is incorporated under the Companies Ordinance and obtained tax-exempt status as a charity from the Inland Revenue Department (Ref No. 91/3798). Currently, our programmes serve vulnerable elderly, underprivileged children and youth in Hong Kong, and also poor children in rural communities and urban areas in China.
Core Values
At HOPE worldwide, we hold to these core values:
To imitate Jesus heart for the poor and needy;
To work in partnership with the communities where we serve;
To adapt our practices to meet local needs;
To steward effectively the resources available to us.
Dental Services Needs and Our Approach
Did you know that in 2016, the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Hong Kong was ranked as the BEST dental school in the world by QS World Universities Rankings by Subject?
Did you also know that every year, the school graduates only around 50 new dentists? The ratio of the number of dentists to the population is very low compared to that of developed nations in the region. In Hong Kong, for every 10,000 people, there are only 3.3 dentists.
The need
Dental services in HK largely rely on private practitioners and they can be expensive. Government clinics only provide children’s basic and preventive dental care and public emergency services (pain relief and extraction only). There is a great NEED for affordable, quality dental care service for the people of Hong Kong.
Our approach
In September, 2017, HOPE worldwide is opening two self-sustaining charitable dental clinics. The concept is to provide affordable, quality dental services to ALL while also helping needy elderly with their dental health needs.
Elderly individuals generally refuse dental care (even those with a toothache) because of high charges and reluctance to spend on it. The Hong Kong Council of Social Service found that over 50% of poor elderly do not consult dentists when they have problems, primarily because they “worry about expensive expenses” and “unaffordable charges”.
Our two clinics are located in Sham Shui Po and Kwai Tsing, two of the districts with a greater concentration of poor households. While we provide quality dental care at an affordable cost to the community, surpluses from the operations will be used to subsidize qualified needy elderly people for treatment.
Our clinics have joined the "Community Care Fund Elderly Dental Assistance Programme" to let the elderly having Old Age Living Allowance enjoy free dental treatments.
In addition, our clinics are also two of the "Designated Dental Clinics" approved by Social Welfare Department to provide fee quotations and dental treatment to recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance.
Elderly Services Needs and our approach
According to the Hong Kong government, the number of elderly people over 65 years old is 980,000, approximately 14% of the total population. This number is projected to increase to 2.56 million, or 30% of the population, by the year 2041.
As people go from young-old to old-old, their physical, emotional, and social needs increase. For example, normal household chores become increasingly difficult. A fall can send the elderly person to the hospital for weeks and eventually devastate their health. As children move out and old friends pass away, they become increasingly isolated socially.
The mission of our Elderly Programme is to help Hong Kong's single elderly people age healthily and with dignity. We achieve this by recruiting, training, and organizing volunteers provide Sports & Day Care Centre Services, Home Care Services, and to carry out the Fall Prevention and Fulfill a Wish Programmes. Our largest outreach event, the annual Volunteers for Seniors Day, has over 2,000 volunteers serving about 1,000 elderly people on a single day.
Children Services Needs and our approach
According to the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report, published in 2012, nearly one in 5 children (age between 0 and 17) in Hong Kong is living in a poor household (defined as a household whose monthly income is less than half of the median income for all households of corresponding size). Even though children can attend government schools for free, the parents lack the educational background and time to help their children tackle the academic demands and also the resources to help them develop their potential. A survey showed that 52% of Hong Kong’s poor children view themselves as “useless”.
Our Children Programme in Hong Kong gives children from low-income families the opportunity to reach their potential and break the cycle of inter-generational poverty. We achieve this by providing academic enhancement and character-building classes during non-school hours, either in a centre setting (the HOPE worldwide Centre for Kids in Shek Kip Mei), or in a school setting (the HOPE worldwide Outreach Centre for Kids).