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Sian Taylor, director of Box of Hope, at Elements shopping centre in West Kowloon. Photo: Dickson Lee

Hong Kong charity focused on giving the gift of hope to city’s disadvantaged children this Christmas

  • Box of Hope has been raising money since November to provide presents for poorer families in the city and beyond
  • According to the latest report 235,000 children live in poverty in Hong Kong
City Weekend

With Christmas soon upon us, a team of 20 volunteers have been busy preparing gift boxes for poor children in Hong Kong, and calling on the public to share in the festive spirit of giving.

Box of Hope, a charity formed in 2008 and dedicated to serving children in need, has been raising funds since November from businesses and individual donors for their Christmas gift boxes, each filled with stuffed toys, stationery, masks, hand sanitisers, and other basic items. The boxes will be handed out to about 70 local charities serving poor children.

The idea of handing out gift boxes was to help children from underprivileged families, and teach the younger generations the power of giving, says Sian Taylor, the charity’s director.

“The main point we try to convey is that not everyone is as lucky as you are,” she says. “There are many children who never had a gift. You can give a child a gift, which is easy for you to do, but can make someone else very happy.”

Elements shopping centre has partnered with Box of Hope to encourage everyone to become a Santa this Christmas. Photo: Dickson Lee

Hong Kong had 235,000 children aged below 18 living in poverty in 2018, accounting for 23.3 per cent of all children, according to the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report released last year.

The charity collects gift boxes from students at about 160 primary schools and kindergartens during Christmas every year. They go to schools to teach the concept of poverty and the joy of sharing, so students can prepare simple gifts and basic items for their peers in need.

Each student is given two weeks to prepare their box, normally a shoebox filled with what they want to share with others, mostly toys and stationery. Many students also write letters and draw pictures.

The volunteers at the charity check each of the boxes to ensure there is no food in it before delivering them to children in Hong Kong, as well as other Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

They collected more than 32,000 boxes last year, and delivered them to children of poor families, including refugees, members of ethnic minorities, and domestic helpers.

One in five Hongkongers living below the poverty line in 2018

But the coronavirus pandemic this year has disrupted the charity’s work. With school closures, the volunteers could not go to schools to collect boxes, while lockdown and travel restrictions have made it hard to deliver the boxes overseas.

To cope with the impact of the pandemic, the charity has relied entirely on donations and used the money to purchase gifts. Some shoe companies have donated boxes.

Despite the difficulties, Taylor says they make sure underprivileged children in Hong Kong will receive the gift boxes to celebrate Christmas, and want to hand out 6,500 boxes this year.

“This year is the toughest year for us,” she says. “But we keep doing what we do, and hopefully next year we will come back bigger and better.”

Among those to have joined the efforts of Box of Hope this year is Elements shopping centre in West Kowloon. Setting this year’s Christmas theme as “We Are All Santa”, the mall is encouraging the public to donate HK$250 to the charity to make one gift box for a child, and Elements will match each donation to benefit more children in need.

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