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Crossroads Foundation is a non-profit charity based in Hong Kong which connects those with resources and those who need help. They do this through collecting quality excess and second-hand goods within Hong Kong, refurbishing them if necessary, and then distributing them to those in need within Hong Kong and internationally.
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Crossroads also runs interactive and immersive simulations to give participants an experience of needs like urban poverty, refugees, HIV/Aids and blindness, through their Global X-perience programmes. Crossroads supports fair trade and social enterprise with a Global Handicrafts marketplace selling fairly traded goods from around the world and their Silk Road Cafe, serving fair trade coffee and other beverages and snacks. Crossroads' online project, Global Hand, offers a website where companies and others from the for-profit world can find non-profit projects to partner on. Global Hand has offices in both Hong Kong and Tunbridge Wells, UK.
A bicycle repair workshop, staffed by volunteers, refurbishes donated old bikes for despatch overseas to provide mobility, or locally to needy children and families.
Organisation
Crossroads Foundation, formerly called Crossroads international, is based at the old British garrison base at Perowne Barracks in Hong Kong, formerly home to the Brigade of Gurkhas. The full-time staff are all volunteers who raise their own income so that they can live and work at Crossroads. Hundreds of part-time staff, also volunteers, come from around Hong Kong to work at Crossroads throughout the week.
History
Crossroads was founded by Malcolm and Sally Begbie in 1995.
The site remains owned by the Hong Kong government and is only made available to Crossroads on a short-term lease, hindering the organisation's ability to expand its services.
In August 2015, the Town Planning Board sought to reclaim the entire site for housing but after discussions, the Foundation was allowed to remain on the eastern half of the site, where most of its daily operations take place. The western portion was then rezoned for a luxury housing development.
Notable projects
At the request of the UNHCR, the Crossroads Global X-perience team participates in the World Economic Forum, hosting their Refugee Run simulation for executives from all over the world to obtain an insight into what it is like to be a refugee.
Again working with the UNHCR and then with the UN directly, Crossroads initiated the Global Hand project to build a web portal that allows those willing to contribute to the UN's relief efforts to be matched with the relevant UN team, and for the UN teams to post their requirements. This web portal was officially launched at the 2010 World Economic Forum and is the model for the UN business site business.un.org.