Football in Happy Valley
Sep 18th, 2009 | Advocacy | Comment
Vision First provides the opportunity for refugees and asylum seeker and the Hong Kong community to participate together in recreational activities. These activities provide numerous benefits for our community:
1. Provide opportunities for social contact across community boundaries;
2. Promote mutual understanding;
3. Engender in participants a desire for and commitment to peaceful coexistence;
4. Enhance skills and knowledge;
5. Strengthens public awareness:
Vision First organizes monthly football matches between our [tippy title=”clients” header=”off”]Vision First registered asylum seekers and refugees. Vision First registered clients are unable to reveal their faces for their protection[/tippy] and the community.
Football has the power to raise awareness and to bring people together. The rules of football provide one of the few truly global standards and can function as a powerful tool for transforming community attitudes and empowering individuals through the acquisition of new physical and social skills, self-confidence and positive relationships.
The rules of football provide one of the few truly global standards and our clients are truly passionate about playing!
A blog from our client – Chiamaka
Sep 1st, 2009 | Advocacy | Comment
This is our food collection for the next ten days. We don’t get vegetable except tomatoes because they give us old stuff locals won’t buy – but why complain? Better than being hungry. You know how many tomatoes 10 USD buy in my country? A whole van load – not what fits inside, but the size of a van wheels included! Our bananas and papaya are so huge you wouldn’t believe and really sweet and fragrant. We make a mashed banana dish with salt, sugar and spices which is the best! If we want fish we don’t have to pay a cent: we just go to the beach early morning, when fishermen dump what they don’t take to market, and pick the best fish to grill at home on a fire. There’s even fish a meter long lying there, because fishermen cut out the cheeks to sell and they don’t care about the rest.
The contrast with Hong Kong is huge: here we struggle with hand-outs because we can’t work and collect two bags of food three times a month. As we share them with friends, after a few days we are hungry and go to charities and churches for meals. I never thought I would go hungry before fleeing my country. I never even thought I would be homeless. Sleeping under the stars in Kowloon park was a shocking first experience for me – it felt like a bad dream. After running out of money, a friend lived almost a year sleeping under the Star Ferry between two columns, where he carved his name lest somebody take his place. A dormitory bed in Chung King Mansion is 70$ a night so how do you pay that? Strange things happen: my friend didn’t have 12 bucks for the slow ferry last night so he sleep hiding in an alley, afraid the police would arrest him because it’s illegal to sleep on the streets for non-Chinese.
Chiamaka 23, East Africa
23 Aug 2009 – our first update
Aug 23rd, 2009 | Advocacy | Comment
Dear supporters –
Since returning from my trip to Italy and France mid-July, we have been very busy, more than expected, but that’s great in this field. We have been thinking how to write monthly updates ahaed of the blog we plan for our website and ‘short & simple’ is preferable to keep you informed. Of course, if you want to hear more about a particular task or wish to participate and contribute your ideas, then let’s have coffee sometime. First some basic information:
– Vision First Limited was incorporated 25 June 2009 with the support of auditors Cheng & Cheng
– Vision First’s certificate of incorporation is No. 1348537
– Vision First’s business registration certificate is No. 50924197
– IRD charity approval should be obtained by December
– CR deletion of “Limited” will take at least one year
Our recent activities:
• Danielle resigned her former job and is now our founder/manager, working from Lyndhurst Tower
• rented and furnished a second mini-shelter in Hung Hom (HH2)
• rented and furnished a third mini-shelter in Hung Hom (HH3) for a total of 12 beds
• designed our logo, see below [Thank you Stephen!]
• launched our holding page website www.visionfirstnow.org
• discussed our role with the two executives at UNHCR in Yaumatei
• meetings and cooperation with ISS (International Social Services) for assistance to shared clients
• registration of 40+ Vison First clients (Danielle has an active list of 50+ from her previous work)
• several medical check-ups with kind Dr. Tsang, who’s offering indispensable and kind support
• purchase of an inter-ocular lens for a diabetic client losing her right eye due to infection
• purchase of red/white Lotto shirts for the East African soccer team (to play on government fields)
• support at dozens of medical visits at Queen Elizabeth Hospital
• emergency assistance to first African child with Swine Flu
• back-rent settlement for six clients and one family (two children) threatened by landlord
• rent top-up agreement with ten deserving clients’ landlords to retain their one-room-home
• internet connections in three shelters, shared by many visiting friends
• broad support for transportation and survival cash for all registered Vision First clients
• one-off intervention to settle power and water bills in distress cases
• opening of HSBC bank account
For those with auto-pay instructions, could you kindly change the details to:
Beneficiary Account Name: Vision First Limited
Beneficiary Bank Name: HSBC Hong Kong
Beneficiary Bank Code: 004
Beneficiary Account Number: 400 – 672952 – 001
Thank you for your support~
Cosmo Beatson
Coordinator
Mobile: 9370 2039 | Office: 2851 0885 | Fax: 2851 0655
Email: cosmo@visionfirstnow.org | Website: www.visionfirstnow.org
VISION FIRST – 1901 Lyndhurst Tower, 1 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong