S for S visits Eastern District (with photos)
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Accompanied by the District Officer (Eastern), Ms Anne Teng, Mr Lai visited Eastern District Council to meet with District Councillors to exchange views on law and order matters and other community issues. He then proceeded to Eastern District Elderly Community Centre of the Hong Kong Society for the Aged (SAGE), where he was briefed on the operation of the centre and exchanged with the elderly members to learn about how they benefit from its services.
SAGE Eastern District Elderly Community Centre commenced service in 1988. It is SAGE's first elderly service unit in private housing estate. The centre provides a wide range of community support services to the elderly, enabling them to live in their familiar community in a healthy and respectable way.
The centre provides a variety of individual and group activities to the elderly to encourage lifelong learning. It reaches out to offer counselling services to those elderly who are physically or socially excluded, and helps them relieve stress by strengthening their knowledge and skills in elderly care. The centre provides training for elderly people with dementia to delay the decline of cognitive ability and encourage them to maintain normal social activities. It also provides meal services, laundry services and bathing facilities for the elderly in need.
Afterwards, Mr Lai proceeded to Youth Outreach to learn about the facilities of the centre and chatted with some of the youths there.
The Youth Outreach Jockey Club Building in Sai Wan Ho opened in 2004. It provides one-stop services to help at-risk youths grow into responsible members of the community. The centre provides a wide range of services and facilities including "The Hang Out" bar, an all-night reaching out service, a crisis residential centre, adventure training, employment and social enterprise services, and more.
Since 2008, Youth Outreach has been approved funding totalling $4.9 million under the Beat Drugs Fund to implement seven projects, including activities organised by its social enterprise like "City Challenge", "The Hang Out" bar and "School of Hip Hop". In addition, the organisation has been granted $1.33 million to carry out a two-year programme named “Street Transformer” since 2014.
Mr Lai said he was glad to learn that Youth Outreach reached out to youth at risk proactively and showed them care and acceptance. He encouraged youths to build their self-respect and self-confidence and to grow and stand on their own feet.
Ends/Monday, November 14, 2016
Issued at HKT 19:09
Issued at HKT 19:09
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