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The Director of Social Welfare, Ms Carol Yip, today (October 24) commended corporate volunteers for their continuing efforts to realise their social responsibility by means of volunteer work. She also encouraged corporations and non-governmental organisations to proactively establish partnerships and make use of more co-operative channels to serve the needy in the community.
The Steering Committee on Promotion of Volunteer Service began promoting the Volunteer Movement in 1998. A Sub-Committee on Promotion of Corporate Volunteering was also set up to encourage corporations to participate in volunteer work and provide support and assistance for the needy, thus helping to build a caring society.
By the end of September 2013, more than 2 480 agencies had registered as Volunteer Movement Participating Organisations and the total number of registered volunteers exceeded 1.19 million. Their total service hours to those in need in the community exceeded 22.66 million hours in 2012.
Addressing the 2013 Seminar on Corporate Volunteering cum Award Presentation Ceremony today, Ms Yip said, "Corporate volunteering has become more mature. Strong support from the corporate field has blended well with that from the welfare sector, making it possible for various innovative volunteer activities to reach different corners of society, injecting positive energy into our community."
She appealed to all participating representatives of the corporations and non-governmental organisations to adopt the theme of the Volunteer Movement – "Volunteering - New Attitude in Life", encourage their staff to pay more attention to people and happenings around them and come up with more volunteer activities that are closely related to daily life when exploring how to take corporate volunteering to new heights. By doing so, the volunteers will be able to instill their caring spirit into their work as well as daily life.
At today's event, 30 awards were presented to those corporations with 10 000 hours or more of volunteer service in 2012.
At the seminar, five speakers were invited from the corporate and welfare fields to share their invaluable experience in relation to the seminar theme of "Special Asset of Corporate: Creative Ideas of 'Win-Win' through Volunteering". They were the
Director of Operations of Power Assets Holdings Ltd, Mr S S Yuen; the General Manager (Public Affairs), Ms Mimi Yeung; the President of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute, Mr Kelvin Lau Kin-wah; the Community Services Secretary of Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Mr Yiu Tze-leung; and the Supervisor of Shamshuipo Central Integrated Children and Youth Services cum Chairman of Working Group for Job-shadowing, Mr Li Tin-lun.
Nine organisations from the welfare sector also set up booths at the venue to showcase their volunteer services and to enable participants to have exchanges, establish networks and obtain service matching.
Ends/Thursday, October 24, 2013
Issued at HKT 17:36
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