Blood transfusion and disaster relief are often times the two types of humanitarian work of Hong Kong Red Cross that the public is most familiar with. While I am very grateful for the recognition and support received in these two areas, I am also eager to bring our valued supporters like your good self another look of our humanitarian services -- education.
You might wonder how and why there is an association between Red Cross and education, or even question if education is ever a type of humanitarian services. Our special education has been dedicated to provide children of physical disabilities, illness and injuries with appropriate equipment and education modes, bringing them to overcome obstacles and develop potentials. From this angle, education builds dignity and confidence to these special-need students and ties in well with our humanitarian mission of "caring for the health of the vulnerable" and "respect human dignity".
"I used to rely on people to push my wheelchair around, and it wasn’t easy to get around the school with my classmates. Now I know how to control the one-arm drive wheelchair, I can go wherever I want during recess or after school!" Sean Cheung, a secondary three student at Hong Kong Red Cross John F. Kennedy Centre, controlling his one-arm drive wheelchair with ease and showing us around the School. The School purchased the wheelchair with a donation received two years ago. In fact, Sean had to undergo two years of challenging training until he was finally able to "walk" around with it.
Sean suffers from cerebral palsy caused by preterm birth. Of his four limbs, he has basic motor function only in his left hand. Although Sean can finish his homework by using the computer with his left hand and participate in boccia, his hand muscles often suffer from lack of energy, pain and other unintended movements such as finger wriggling. Thus, Sean needs teachers and staff to take special care of his routine at the boarding school. Under the attentive care of the School, Sean began to rely much on his teachers and staff.
"His muscles hurt when he tried to hold cutlery, so whenever he saw me at lunch time, he would ask me to feed him," said Mr. Cheung (Cheung Sir), Manager of Occupational Therapy Department in the School, who is both a teacher but also a friend whom Sean likes to talk to. Cheung Sir gave great support to Sean when he was learning to control the one-arm drive wheelchair. "With the training, Sean's muscle control has been improved and would now insist to feed on his own. I am very happy that his self-care ability has improved a lot too."
What Sean went through to learn controlling the one-arm drive wheelchair was not only to endure the muscle pain in holding the control stick, but it was more on the coordination of controlling more than one control stick as well as directions of the wheelchair at the same time.
Controlling the one-arm drive wheelchair is like driving a manual car - the person does not only need to hold the control stick to change gear, but also have to learn making turns, compounding the whole task into a test of hand-eye coordination. "Sean's coordination is actually quite good. He can determine the distance from obstacles and respective turning angles correctly most of the time. However, as he cannot control his muscles very well, he often bumped into obstacles," said Ms. Tam, an occupational therapist in the School.
With the understanding of Sean's difficulty in controlling the wheelchair, the Occupation Therapy Department tailor-made training exercise for him - to practice in straight and wide corridors first, and only after familiarizing with the control sticks did Sean start practicing on slopes and making turns.
"Going up a slope and making turns are the biggest challenges while controlling a one-arm drive wheelchair. For instance, turning right takes a bigger angle than left, so I often need to adjust the angle a few times until I can make the turn successfully. Going up a slope also requires much energy and I always sweat a lot as if I had done some intense exercise," said Sean.
Thanks to the assistance and encouragement of the therapist, teaching staff and family, two years of hard work finally bears fruit. Sean can now control the wheelchair and move around the School by himself. More importantly, his muscle control ability is also strengthened and health therefore been improved.
"Students like Sean who gets around in a wheelchair does not have many opportunities to do exercise. Therefore, controlling the wheelchair is a good physical training for muscles coordination and cardiopulmonary function," Cheung Sir explained.
"Sean must sit up straight while controlling the one-arm drive wheelchair, so that he can maintain good posture, breathe smoothly as well as enhance head-hand-body coordination. Also, the training has strengthened Sean's muscle control and endurance, relieve muscle strain, seizures, fatigue and hand pain. Sean's muscle control ability was relatively weak at the beginning and he spent at least a few minutes to hold well onto the control stick. But it is no longer a challenge for him now, from moving around in a small classroom with obstacles or coordinating multiple control sticks in moving into an elevator."
"Riding a wheelchair to take the elevator is actually not that easy. I must grasp the time to use the small horizontal stick to switch to backward gear after entering the elevator in order to move out of the elevator right away and avoid blocking other students. I am so happy that I can control the wheelchair myself now. I used to rely on my teachers and others to help push my wheelchair, but now I can go wherever I want!" Sean said as he proudly showed us how he skillfully wields the wheelchair into the elevator.
To learn to master controlling a one-arm drive wheelchair for special needs students like Sean is not an achievement overnight. Despite Sean's physical disabilities, he worked hard to overcome the roadblocks and eventually made his own path. However, we are only having one wheelchair of this kind and Sean, being one of the students with the most urgent need, is the only one who has access to it now. We do hope that you could help us to provide the appropriate equipment to our special needs students with a gift of HK$500. Your generosity will give support to our special-need students on the road of learning, helping them to overcome congenital limitations, explore their potentials and to live with dignity. This is exactly why we work hard on special education which is one of our humanitarian services.
Apart from special education, much effort is also put in inspiring and bringing youth close with humanitarian exposure and spirit.
"There was once a primary school student who really impressed me. He told me he now understands that violence does not solve problems and promises that he would never resort to violence. I spoke to his teacher and parents later and found out that this student used to bully other students, as he was taller than the others. But after taking part in our humanitarian activities, he decided that he wants to become a healthcare professional and take part in humanitarian work to help others. I later learnt that he went to Australia to study physiotherapy, hoping to put humanitarian values into practice by helping the injured and vulnerable," recalled Mr. Szeto Kin-tat (Szeto) who is the Centre Manager of the Hong Kong Red Cross Humanitarian Education Centre, which is a base to nurture humanitarian education and operates a war simulation experience called "WARZONE 90" to bring participants with reflection on humanitarian issues.
While humanitarian topics may sound afar, they are indeed not so distant from our daily lives. When a human life or dignity is threatened, it creates humanitarian challenges. So even in Hong Kong, a place free from threats of war, humanitarian issues are intertwined in our lives.
"Problems arising from poverty and improper care in care homes are some humanitarian challenges Hong Kong is facing nowadays. If we can cultivate and foster humanitarian values and sympathy, such humanitarian issues can be reduced. Thus, we hope to nurture and apply humanitarian values in our daily lives through humanitarian education," said Szeto. Humanitarian education is often conducted through a 4E education model, namely "Explore, Experience, Exchange and Engage". Participants at the WARZONE 90 exercise can evaluate humanitarian issues and understand humanitarian values through first-hand experience of a 90-minute journey in the "battlefield", as well as by applying and sharing views and taking actions with others.
Other projects in fostering humanitarian education, in taking care of different age groups, include "Humanity Experience Camp", "Top Ten Humanity News Election" and "Youth Humanitarian Law Moot" as well as "Humanitarian Peace Award Drawing Competition" etc., all intending to put the younger generation forward to learn about humanitarian values while applying them within their ability.
While humanitarian education may not change the world overnight, the seeds of humanitarian values still need to be sowed among the youngsters, the earlier the better. We hope that youngsters will care about international affairs, cultivate their own international vision, humanitarian values and become global citizens who pass on humanitarian values to the next generation.
"Humanitarian values are after all something conceptual and can only make our world a better place by applying them in real life," said Szeto, who sees that the Humanitarian Education Centre will develop into a strong base of Hong Kong’s humanitarian education in broadcasting the values, so that more Hong Kong people will pay attention to local humanitarian issues.
Please donate online or download the donation form. Your donation of HK$500, HK$800 or even HK$1,000 will help sustain our special education services as well as many other humanitarian works - including humanitarian education, local relief services, caring programme for home-bound elders, and psychological first aid support, etc.
Lastly, I would like to deeply thank for your time in reading this letter and allowing me to share with you our work and mission in education. I will continue to keep you posted about other humanitarian services through upcoming newsletters. Should you require further information on our services or usage of donation, please feel free to contact us at secretarygeneral@redcross.org.hk or at 2802 0016.
Bonnie So
Secretary General