For the past 14 years, HandsOn Hong Kong has been helping Hong Kong citizens to serve the community. Their work has been recognised with the Spirit of Teamwork Award at the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards in 2020 for their dedication to helping the Hong Kong community.
The HandsOn team helps recruit and manage volunteers for more than 100 NGO partners working across diverse areas, including Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, Christian Action Centre for Refugees, Crossroads Foundation, Feeding Hong Kong, Food Angel, ImpactHK and Redress. They also help under-resourced community and elderly centres develop and run charity programmes. ‘We know that everyone has something to give, and to receive, through participating in community services,’ says Executive Director Sue Toomey.
2020 will be remembered as a year of working from home and social distancing in Hong Kong and around the world, and that left many feeling isolated and distressed. The HandsOn team knew that they had to stay connected as a team while working from home in order to ensure they were mentally fit enough to continue serving those in need, and began conducting daily phone check-ins. ‘Beyond these check-ins, we also conducted other virtual activities, such as interviewing one another or talking about our favourite foods or holiday locations. This helped break through the monotony of remote working. In the process, our team actually grew even closer,’ says Sue.
Social distancing engenders a growing sense of anxiety for people of all ages but in particularly the elderly. With this in mind, in February 2020, the team reached out to their community service partners to find out how they could assist them in coping with the challenge.
Speaking with social workers at their partner elderly centres such as the Hong Kong Women Foundation Ho Kwok Pui-chun Social Centre for the Elderly, the HandsOn team learnt that these centres were short-handed due to social distancing measures. They also learnt that many elderly residents were self-isolating because of health concerns and anxieties around contracting the coronavirus. To address both issues, HandsOn helped the elderly centres to develop a phone check-in programme supported by volunteers.
‘A simple call can make a world of difference. With this in mind, we developed this volunteer phone calling programme, which helps bring care and support to the elderly and others who are in need, while at the same time lightening the workload of the staff at the centres,’ says Sue.
Social workers at each centre identified a list of elderly individuals whom they felt were particularly in need of caring phone calls. The volunteers then made two calls per week of 20 to 30 minutes in duration, chatting with their elderly friends on topics ranging from health and hygiene to cooking, leisure and entertainment. HandsOn provided training for every volunteer so they would feel comfortable making the calls, would know what to say and what not to say, and would know how to report back to the centre if they sensed that their elderly friend was in distress. Volunteers were encouraged to listen attentively and to express their care and concern.
‘We knew it would be important to establish trust between the elderly person and the caller, so we recommended that volunteers commit to a minimum of four weeks, with an opportunity to renew for another four. This enabled the volunteers to establish rapport, and they could pick up on previous conversations,’ explains Sue.
This vital phone outreach wasn’t the team’s only relief programme, however. Among other initiatives, HandsOn rallied volunteers to deliver relief care packages to households in need of financial support due to the pandemic. Throughout 2020, HandsOn volunteers delivered more than 6,500 care packs to the doorsteps of the elderly, less-resourced families and individuals with physical and mental impairments. The packs included essential items such as hygiene packs with face masks, hand sanitisers and shower gels, as well as foods such as rice, cooking oil, canned fish and meat, dried foods, snacks, coffee and tea. For packs delivered to families, SIM cards were also included for students to access Wi-Fi for home schooling.
By placing the needs of the community and their volunteers first, and also staying connected with each other, the HandsOn team members were able to adapt and help the community in new and innovative ways.
‘It was incredibly gratifying for us to see our hard work making a positive impact in this time of need. In a year when we pulled together as a team to ensure our doors were never closed and our service programmes continued, the award means so much to us,’ says Sue. ‘It validates our efforts as a team and enables us to help more people in Hong Kong to volunteer and receive all of the benefits that come from giving back to the community.’
