Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong

Mapperthon is a YMCA programme which encourages the public to exchange the calories they burn when doing exercise for household goods, and to donate those items to people in need. We designed a smart phone app for the participants, also known as Mappers in Mapperthon. The app can calculate calories burned. The calories burned can then be exchanged for household items on the app. “Equal for all” was the first calorie collecting activity under the app. Mappers used their calories burned to redeem some natural detergent. They visited the elderly and shared those natural detergent with them.

 

The programme linked up youth and the middle-aged to provide volunteer services to the elderly living in rehabilitation centres. Volunteers introduced new sports to the elderly, encouraging them to do more exercise for health.

 

Members of University YMCA (Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong) went to Xi’an to visit handicapped children and children with special needs.

 

Going to Mongolia with 15 members, volunteers from University YMCA built playgrounds for the kids there.

 

University YMCA(Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong) and University YMCA (The University of Hong Kong) held two pet-related activities. Members from CUHK went to the SPCA with a group of primary school students, to let the kids know about the animal adoption and other welfare services. Members from HKU went to a dog rescue centre to visit a hundred abandoned dogs, and helped clean the centre and feed the dogs.

 

Sponsored by UBP Hong Kong Branch, Sower—Caring the Elderly Programme collaborated with School of Optometry of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University to provide vision screening services for the underprivileged. More than 40 students and teachers from the School of Optometry came to Jordan Centre to provide vision testing for a hundred elderly and women from the grassroots. The test covered various refractive errors, such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. After the assessment, the programme provided suitable glasses or referrals for the participants.

 

Children growing up in better off families are used to enjoying full support from their parents, in terms of education, entertainment and daily life. The difficulties facing the grass roots may be hard for them to imagine. Tsuen Centre organized a series of activities for the children to understand the life of the underprivileged, including volunteer training, living in squatter area, visiting poor families, and distributing lunch boxes to the homeless. The activities not only broadened the horizons of the children, but also encouraged them to pay attention to different social issues.

 

In order to help ethnic minority women to adapt to the living environment in Hong Kong, a charity service centre in Sham Shui Po has held some knitting classes and has let the women be the teachers, allowing them to make good use of their strengths. Ten members from University YMCA (The University of Hong Kong) learnt basic knitting from the women and during the chit-chat in the class, the members came to understand the women’s difficulties in their daily lives.

 

Hiking is not be an easy task for the blind. After learning how to communicate with the blind, 10 members from University YMCA (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) went hiking with the blind on Mount Parker. They had a great time and enjoyed the connecting with nature.

 

A group of housewives from Kwun Tong District use their leisure time to provide free house-cleaning services to the elderly living alone. In Mid-Autumn Festival, the housewives paid home-visits with their children to the elderly. They ate mooncakes and enjoyed precious time under the full moon.

 

Seven members from University YMCA (Hong Kong Baptist University) provided one-off in-flat maintenance services to the elderly. The elderly received warmth from the members.

 

Kornhill Centre organized a two-month programme, reminding parents and their children to be concerned about the elderly living alone or living in elderly homes. While encouraging communication between parents and children, the programme also fostered children’s self-confidence and sense of responsibility.

 

Holding an exchange tour with some international students, a group of members of University YMCA (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) and University YMCA (Hong Kong Baptist University) visited the elderly, farmers and poor families in Guangdong. While experiencing the hard work of farming, the members learnt about village culture.