Journal Entry #15

What can we do to help cage dwellers in Hong Kong?

It is a fact that there are more than 100,000 cage dwellers in Hong Kong. Many people talk about it, such as some forums, videos, and television programmes, but do we actually step out to help?

I went on Google to search for organizations that actually do substantial work. Every forum and website I go to points to only one organization: SoCO, the Society for Community Organization. However, searching their site, I found that all they do is raise awareness and fight for the rights of people that live in caged homes. They have many “photo exhibitions” and “artwalks” that show photos of cage dwellers to raise public awareness, even bringing in an actual cage to an exhibition in Central. But do these exhibitions and awareness projects really help?

There was a YouTube video showed in Ethics class of a man who went to a cage home to see its horrible conditions. A young girl, Jessica, has nearly no money to pay rent for a cubicle home. She has to go to school by herself everyday while her mother goes to work early in the morning. The kitchen and bathroom is not at all sanitary and is shared between 20 people. She has cockroaches crawling over her at night, and never lives a comfortable life.

After researching for more organizations, I couldn’t find any that specially help cage and cubicle dwellers. I appreciate SoCO for allowing the public to know how horrible cage homes are. It truly is surprising that in such a developed urban city, there could be more than a hundred thousand people who live in cages like animals. Even the cages aren’t cheap. Though they are stacked on top of another, they cost quite a lot for the people who live there, and the government has done nothing to help.

So how can my class and I help? Our small class of 20 has many possibilities. There is a saying along the lines of “small people can do great things.” I propose this method:

Project “Uncage”

Purpose: To significantly/solidly help the people who live in cages and cubicles (not just raising awareness within our comfort zone)

Materials: Our class and whatever else is needed, lots of Bibles (probably Chinese), possibly subsidized by our school

Procedure:
– We split the class into 4 or 5 groups
– Buy tons of Chinese Bibles
– Each group goes twice a month (so two groups go at a time), maybe on the weekend, to do service for cage dwellers
– Examples include helping them clean their cages or cubicles, giving them food, etc.
– Give a Bible to each cage dweller and teach them about Christ
– Give Chinese lessons and/or English lessons to those who are less educated or illiterate
– Make this a mandatory class participation assignment worth lots of points, only excusable if the group really can’t go

Expansion:
– If our ideas work, we get more people to help and spread to more cage homes, such as other classes and possibly the whole school
– Most of our school’s families are rich, so we can get donations from them, possibly even start an organization with a parent who has resources and power
– If the school starts working with us, we can get the school to open a class or a few specially for those who live in cage homes so they get free and good education with more education on Christianity

I believe that everyone should have the chance to meet Christ, and if our school is truly a Christian school and not a commercial product, our school should approve this project and expand it so that even the lowest of the lowest can meet God and have a chance to go to heaven, because this is the true Great Commission that Jesus sent us to do. If we are really Christians, then we will help the lowest of society, those who don’t have the ability to know God by themselves.