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Over half a million participants have benefitted from the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) since its inception, with about $240 million allocated to support 238 projects operated by more than 130 organisations and 5 000 partners, the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said today (January 13).
Speaking at the annual gathering cum appointment ceremony of SC.Net, Mr Cheung noted that many CIIF projects have been successfully implemented in the past nine years to promote social capital. Successful projects, such as the adoption of the "house captain" approach to enhance neighbourhood support, cross-sectoral collaboration among "medical, social services and the community", or among "families, the community and schools", have set good examples and laid a solid foundation for the further development of social capital, he said.
To date, SC.Net, a platform for pooling expertise from different sectors to promote the concept of social capital, has 151 members.
In support of CIIF, Dr David Lee Ka-yan personally performs the CIIF's theme song "Siu Ming visits the community" in his popular "Siu Ming" series to convey the social capital messages of reciprocity, cross-sectoral collaboration and mutual help networking.
At the appointment ceremony, participants in a CIIF-funded project, the "Impetus Campaign", shared their experience of building a cross-strata community network in Long Bin Interim Housing and Long Ping Estate in Yuen Long. One of them spoke about how he started by helping his neighbours collect used furniture, joining home visits or buying daily sundry items, and turned it into a core element of the community network in promoting mutual support in the neighbourhood. He continued his voluntary work to strengthen the community network even after moving out of the interim housing.
With CIIF entering its 10th year this year, Mr Cheung encouraged members of the CIIF committee and SC.net members to make good use of their knowledge, experience and social network to further promote the building of social capital in the community.
Ends/Friday, January 13, 2012
Issued at HKT 17:41
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