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Category: Taking Action

Creative Mindset in the Combat Against Poverty

Interviewee: Professor Chau Ying Editor: Ness Ma (Communications Officer) SIGHT (Student Innovation for Global Health Technology) is a platform in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) where students try to conceive of and implement solutions for a variety of medical issues in resource-deprived areas. Professor CHAU Ying is the project director who also teaches in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering of the HKUST. She could have stayed in school to teach and do research like the others, but she would rather take her students to the field, into the slums and mountains of poor countries, and serve the locals with science, skills, and creativity. Why did she take this path? Photo from SIGHT

Happiness is Caring for Creations

Written by Ness Ma (Communications Officer) Caring for the created world is a significant and complex issue. We may have lost hope and motivation because of living in the Apocalypse. Nonetheless, our Chief Executive, Dr. Chan Pui Si, shared the encouragement and acknowledgement of her poverty alleviation and environmental protection work in an online talk, ‘Caring for the Created World in the Apocalypse Regardless of Success or Failure’, on 6 January evening. Pui Si noted that disasters happen every day and around us, and the difference is whether they are in front of us, in the news report, or not even reported. She exemplified the floods and droughts in India last year that anthropogenic climate change certainly plays

My Plastic Reduction Action – after the CEDAR’s Exposure Trip 2018

Banner Image: Sarah Hong (far right) Written by: Sarah Hong (Participant of CEDAR’s Exposure Trip 2018) The world God first-created was in a stable and balanced peaceful condition, which illustrated Shalom. He gave us the responsibility to manage the land. Yet, we failed our task, destroyed the land and its eco-system and caused a lot of problems, such as climate change. I joined the CEDAR’s exposure trip to Thai-Burmese border and rural northern Thailand in December last year. During the trip, my companions and I visited UHDP [1], CEDAR’s partner. UHDP understood God’s heart for reconciling relationships between human and other aspects, including the nature. Therefore, they adopted an agricultural principle that can sustain development, protect the nature and reconcile

The Love between a Grandmother and a Granddaughter

Banner image: Angela (second from the left), Kimberly (centre) and her grandmother Written by: Jady Sit (Communications Officer) “Snap!” A colourful image emerged slowly from the blur in an instant photo. A grandmother from an impoverished village in Zimbabwe saw herself and her granddaughter, Kimberly, in the picture and broke into a smile, which was rarely seen on her face. Suffering from AIDS, Kimberly was physically disabled. She was unable to speak or sit up, and had been abandoned by her mother when she was 3 years old. Since then, she had been cared for by her grandmother, who sold vegetables in front of their hut. Owing to her disability, Kimberly was sick very often. Since she did

When Poverty Becomes a Sin

Banner image: The author (far right) and other trippers visited ethnic minorities in northern Thailand Written by: Janice Cheng (participant of CEDAR’s exposure trip in 2018; church pastor) In December last year, I went to the Thai-Myanmar border with CEDAR to learn about their poverty alleviation projects in the area. The 8-day trip enabled me to understand more about the region. We visited some villages with CEDAR’s local partners and spoke to various individuals during our time there. The residents are mostly ethnic minority groups from the mountainous areas, and they all have their own predicaments to overcome. There are abandoned single mothers and minority groups who have been relocated to the border area in northern Thailand due

A Story of the $100-Red-Packet

Written by: Edward Lai “This year, will you be willing to donate your red packet money to the underprivileged people in other countries? “ “Yes, of course!” Fung Tin-lam answered confidently. Ting-lam, a third-grader, is like any Hong Kong boy we know. His daily routine includes school, homework, and playing his favorite toys before dinner. His life and his world, never overlap with those who live in developing countries away from Hong Kong. Even though Tin-lam has never met them, he has determined to save up part of his red packet money to share with them. 100 dollars may not be much to a lot of people; but to Tin-lam, it is a significant amount for a new toy

‘Let’s Go Barefoot, NOW!’

Written by: Ethel Sha (Participant of CEDAR Barefoot Walk 2017) A year ago, the chief executive of CEDAR commenced the event by sending out this command. Everybody in the hall took off their shoes and got ready to step out of their comfort zones to walk around Tseung Kwan O barefoot. Since then, I have never bared my feet to walk in the city, but to learn and be aware of the issue of human trafficking with a “barefoot” spirit. My memories of the Barefoot Walk last year are still vivid. From the moment I “applied” to work as a domestic helper overseas, to “being exploited” in labour, I discovered that I would lose power over my life

Step Out, Live Out the Blessings

Written by: Tiffany Lam During holiday, would you travel abroad, or do something meaningful? A team of 10 brothers and sisters from Evangelical Free Church of China Waterloo Hill Church (WHC) spent their 10-day holidays in Nepal last April. They travelled to mountainous communities in Gorkha to visit CEDAR’s partner ACN who are doing post-disaster work. “Through this trip, we hope to help brothers and sisters realise what integral mission is and broaden their gospel vision,” says Joshua, former WHC staff and part of the team. Therefore, they stepped out of the air-conditioning room at church and went to remote mountainous area where they practised walking with local people and the meaning of offering a cup of cold water to

Divine Intervention in Broken Livest

Written by: Maylin Hartwick (Leader of Harmony Baptist Church) When one wants to reconcile with oneself, God’s intervention is indispensable as God transforms the life of a person. In the past few years, CEDAR has witnessed many encouraging testimonies of its partners. We saw how God healed the brokenness in the lives of the poor and exploited. Harmony Baptist Church (HBC) is a friend of CEDAR. Like CEDAR, HBC is active in mobilising local believers to care for refugees, asylum seekers, domestic workers, and victims of human trafficking here in Hong Kong. Maylin, a leader of HBC, is going to share with us stories of women they have served and how God has intervened in their lives. At Harmony Baptist Church,

This is Community Development

Written and edited by: Jojo Poon I enjoy hearing stories and sharing of different development workers very much. If we put their sharing together, then we would get a complete picture of God’s purposes for the poor and the world. For this issue’s “Taking Action”, we invited CEDAR’s staff from different eras to share about their learnings and experiences along the way to put together a blueprint for CEDAR. “We were in Gansu’s Hui village working on the project… When we conducted home visits, we would ask: ‘Is anyone home?’, and if there were only women in the house, they would answered: ‘No!’” shares Alice, who served in Gansu, China. “We spent half a year to build relationship