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Corona Virus: Helping out in HK

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  1. #1

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    Corona Virus: Helping out in HK

    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    Well, can you suggest specifically how we can help? From the organizations you listed, do they accept donations? If you have some concrete suggestions, please share.
    Here you go - for the groups with which I have contact:
    Contact Us
    Note that this group does not actively solicit for help, but if you offer to assist, whether financially, handing out gloves and masks to street cleaners or going full hazmat and helping disinfect urban slums, they can let you know how.

    https://www.christian-action.org.hk/en/donate. One of the donation options is for Hong Kong - most needed, or you can contact them.

    https://soco.org.hk/en/donation/. As well as money, they are always looking for people willing to be involved in various capacities - Cantonese, Putonghua or languages commonly used by local minorities extra welcome.

    Note that all the above agencies have a specifically Christian emphasis, although they all provide aid without any strings attached.

    If you have a computer (or 10) to donate, and you have the ability to reformat it to factory specs, securely erasing all your material, then it could be given directly to either SoCO or St Stephen's with instructions that you want it given to a local family with school aged children. If you do not have the capability to reformat, then Crossroads Foundation will be happy to accept it and do the job for you - again you need to specify that it is for local distribution (unless you are equally happy for it to end up in a school in Papua New Guinea or other destination they send to). Note that because poor families here live in such cramped spaces, laptops are much more practical than desktop models.
    Here's the Crossroads link:
    https://www.crossroads.org.hk/global...onate-goods-2/

    And these few groups cannot even address local needs on their own - I think any of us on the front lines would be delighted to hear of others involved in similar work, whether they are affiliated with any religion or none.
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  2. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by chingleutsch:
    Here you go - for the groups with which I have contact:
    Contact Us
    Note that this group does not actively solicit for help, but if you offer to assist, whether financially, handing out gloves and masks to street cleaners or going full hazmat and helping disinfect urban slums, they can let you know how.

    https://www.christian-action.org.hk/en/donate. One of the donation options is for Hong Kong - most needed, or you can contact them.

    https://soco.org.hk/en/donation/. As well as money, they are always looking for people willing to be involved in various capacities - Cantonese, Putonghua or languages commonly used by local minorities extra welcome.

    Note that all the above agencies have a specifically Christian emphasis, although they all provide aid without any strings attached.

    If you have a computer (or 10) to donate, and you have the ability to reformat it to factory specs, securely erasing all your material, then it could be given directly to either SoCO or St Stephen's with instructions that you want it given to a local family with school aged children. If you do not have the capability to reformat, then Crossroads Foundation will be happy to accept it and do the job for you - again you need to specify that it is for local distribution (unless you are equally happy for it to end up in a school in Papua New Guinea or other destination they send to). Note that because poor families here live in such cramped spaces, laptops are much more practical than desktop models.
    Here's the Crossroads link:
    https://www.crossroads.org.hk/global...onate-goods-2/

    And these few groups cannot even address local needs on their own - I think any of us on the front lines would be delighted to hear of others involved in similar work, whether they are affiliated with any religion or none.
    Thanks.

    What is needed more, money or non-chinese-speaking (wo)manpower?

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    Thanks.

    What is needed more, money or non-chinese-speaking (wo)manpower?
    St Stephen's Society values people hours more although money is of course also accepted. They have different fellowships in different areas of HK, each involved in neighbourhood projects.

    Am not so directly familiar with what's going on in CA or SoCO at present; all I know is that everyone in the particular bit of NGO-ville is really busy just now!

  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by chingleutsch:
    If you do not have the capability to reformat, you could offer the computer to Crossroads Foundation - I know that they provide reconditioned computers to students referred by the SWD. Note that because poor families here live in such cramped spaces, laptops are much more practical than desktop models.
    Here's the Crossroads link:
    https://www.crossroads.org.hk/global...onate-goods-2/
    Sorry, felt the need to correct myself in the above paragraph. Just because I live in the area does not give me the authority to accept goods on Crossroads' behalf.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by chingleutsch:
    Sorry, felt the need to correct myself in the above paragraph. Just because I live in the area does not give me the authority to accept goods on Crossroads' behalf.
    Thanks for the info about computers. Was not aware of Crossroads accepting computers for local distribution. Have hesitated dealing with them in the past, as they tend to ship product overseas.

    Have to clean out our long term storage - might get to it this weekend and then figure out how to get the computers (older iMacs - low space requirements) to them.

  6. #6

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    Thanks, Shri. I guess one thing to check - no matter where people want to donate secondhand computers - is that they have the capability to deal with current interface needs for online classes - memory, processing speed and whatever else this technical dinosaur doesn't understand.


  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by shri:
    Thanks for the info about computers. Was not aware of Crossroads accepting computers for local distribution. Have hesitated dealing with them in the past, as they tend to ship product overseas.

    Have to clean out our long term storage - might get to it this weekend and then figure out how to get the computers (older iMacs - low space requirements) to them.
    From my very limited experience, Crossroads was really good to work with to get computers into a local NGO. They did a very professional job of getting the hardware cleaned up, formatted back to factory spec, then providing a bit of post-delivery support for a couple of bits that turned out broken (not their fault, shipping a big load of old computer hardware anywhere is bound to see things bumped around a bit).

    I have no idea how much of their stuff stays in HK or goes overseas, but they seem to take a lot of corporate refresh stuff, which is bound to be huge numbers of desktops. Someone else made the point in this thread that a lot of households in HK are already too crowded for desktops.
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  8. #8

    Good thread, highly appreciated.
    Any options if you're not a fan of religious charities?


  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by CharSiuNow:
    Good thread, highly appreciated.
    Any options if you're not a fan of religious charities?
    I'm not in direct contact with this group, but they might have something doing:
    https://impacthk.org
    thegame181, CharSiuNow and spode like this.

  10. #10

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    ImpactHK is an awesome charity. Jeff, who started the NGO is a great guy.

    CharSiuNow and chingleutsch like this.