All Categories Staff Volunteer Activities About the Trust

The pandemic has brought about a new normal and volunteering service won’t only stick to the physical format. CARE@hkjc Volunteer Team actively launches innovative volunteer activities which let volunteers continue serving the community while staying at home. Nearly 200 volunteers were mobilized in March and April to participate in a number of stay-home services. Service targets include ethnic minority students, animals, the elderly and students with special educational needs (SEN).

Ethnic minorities (EM) are one of the main service targets of the volunteer team recently. Cooperated with the Hong Kong Children and Youth Services, CARE@hkjc matched volunteers with EM students to provide one-on-one Chinese tutorial class. The programme aims at supporting non-Chinese speaking students in Chinese homework and studies during school holiday, in the meantime, encouraging them to speak more Cantonese in the process which facilitate their integration into the school environment and local community. CARE team also mobilized volunteers to produce videos of them telling interesting Cantonese short stories at home and share them with local and EM students to raise their interest in learning Chinese.

CARE team’s volunteer activities are not only about language learning. CARE balloon team were invited to teach balloon twisting technique via online interest class. Apart from EM students from the Hong Kong International Social Service - HOPE Centre, CARE balloon team also taught 50 SEN students from Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association to make balloons of different characters online for four consecutive weeks during the school holiday. Judging from the laughter of the children, they all enjoyed this alternative interest class.

Volunteers who participated in online tutoring and balloon workshops pointed out that online volunteer service was very challenging, as they were unable to get students' immediate feedback. However, it encouraged them to attempt more innovative and interactive teaching styles. Seeing the progress of the students gave them a great sense of satisfaction!

CARE team's service target continues to expand recently, and now consists of different animals! Hundreds of volunteers participated in an online workshop to learn how to knit cat beds, aims at providing soft and comfortable resting place for cats in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals adoption center and other animal organisations like the Hong Kong Saving Cats and Dogs Association.

Furthermore, CARE team cooperated with CARITAS Cheng Sing Fung District Elderly Centre (SSP) again for “Call 2 Care” programme. Volunteers made calls to elderly singletons and doubletons living in Sham Shui Po twice a month and checked on the elderly’s health status.  Volunteers would report the case to social workers if necessary in order to provide timely assistance to the elderly. CARE stay home services brought joy to the community in the time of corona.