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The following statement was issued by the Social Welfare Department today (December 1) in response to a press report that only $3.3 million of the "We Care Education Fund" had been paid out to the intended beneficiaries and was a "cold-hearted way to help SARS children".
A department spokesman said that parents of the affected children had expressed the preference for regular payments to be made from the fund, instead of one lump sum, to meet their children's education expenses as they grow up.
"Many felt that this arrangement would give their children, especially the very young ones, much needed certainty", he said.
Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, one of the co-founders of the fund and its former Trustee in her official capacity as Director of Social Welfare, and other members of the Advisory Committee visited families individually from May to July. The parents they met unanimously expressed the above preference.
"As a community initiative, we are entrusted by the public to take good care of these unfortunate children on a long-term basis. We have also taken into account the views of the parents put to us during our visits to them", she said.
"With many children of a young age, this is indeed a major undertaking. The co-founders of the fund and colleagues in the Social Welfare Department are not taking their responsibility lightly," she added.
When the fund was formally launched in early May, the public was told that it had been established to take care of the educational needs of the children whose parents had died of SARS, until they were adults.
Despite the growing number of beneficiary children as the SARS outbreak continued in the subsequent months, that ambitious objective has been made possible by the generous donations collected from almost every sector of the community. A total amount of $82 million has been raised.
The disbursement of some $3.3 million in the fund's first year of operation should be seen against the above context.
In fact, as most of the children are receiving free primary and junior secondary education in public sector schools, "the majority of the allocations are to meet educational expenses for private tuition, special interest classes, textbook and stationery, transport, etc, in line with the objective of meeting each child's individual needs," the spokesman explained.
"Tailoring to meet every child's individual needs, the fund is supporting the more expensive school fees for a few children studying in local private and international schools and three children on overseas studies. We project that outlays from the fund will increase in the years ahead."
The "We Care Education Fund" operates as a trust for the children, except that it is a collective one. Instead of cutting up the fund in equal portions at the outset, the fund has tried to preserve maximum flexibility to meet the varied needs of the children.
The spokesman pointed that some families clearly had financial needs beyond those of their child's education, but that was outside the fund's stated objective.
"While part of these needs have been met initially through other sources, such as the Business Community Relief Fund for Victims of SARS, the Government-funded SARS Trust Fund recently approved by the Legislative Council will be able to provide the needed relief through substantial lump sum payments," he noted.
"As a privately-funded initiative characterised by compassion and concern, the fund requires no application from the family, no production of documents and no verification of the spending.
"Social workers from the Social Welfare Department are tasked with maintaining regular contact with the families and relating their requirements to the fund's committee. Such regular contact will ensure continued support for the families and reflects the wishes of the community," the spokesman said.
Ends/Monday, December 1, 2003
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