St. James' Settlement (Hong Kong)

History

St. James' Settlement was founded by the Rt. Rev. Bishop R.O. Hall of the Anglican Church as a club for children in 1949. The club was originally operated in the temple of Northern King in Stone Nullah Lane, Wanchai. In 1963, it was rebuilt to a six-storey building and started to extend its service group to teenagers, the elderly and those with mental health problems. In 1987, Eastern Clinic and the office of the Civil Defence Corps were rebuilt to today's headquarter of the St. James' Settlement in Stone Nullah Lane. It is a multi-service community centre and the scope of services was further extended. After the Central and Western District Elderly Community Center was opened in 1991, different service centres developed and located along the North coast of Hong Kong Island. Currently, there are more than 20 service units in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories with over 800 staff in the organisation.

Values

1. Being a Christian organisation, it provides services based on the principle of Care, Respect, Fairness, Striking for excellence and Customer service
2. Opportunities are of vital importance for everyone to develop their own unique talents.
3. Facilitate the caring function of family as it is the primary caring unit in society
4. Employees are highly respected and the understanding between employees and the organisation will not be hurdled because of the difference in hierarchy
5. Matters are tackled without prejudice, regardless of who are involved, what the matter is concerned and where the matter is happened
6. Being a social organisation, it has the obligation to serve society

Mission

1. Provide thorough social services with high quality which follow the Christian principles so as to cope with various needs from different social groups, helping people in need and assist them to stand on their own feet and cultivate the harmony and integration of society
2. Understand manifold needs of society and respond to society's changes effectively and appropriately to satisfy social needs by arrange and implement services and to establish an elitist and pioneering reputation in the field of social services
3. Aware of the social service development across the Hong Kong boundary for the sake of learning from each other and to seek collaboration opportunities
4. Provide venues and facilities for the training of social work students and workers

Funding

There are various channels for St. James' Settlement to collect funds.

1. Subsidization from the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Church)
2. Government subsidisation
3. Lotteries Fund
4. Grants
5. Dues and fees
6. Investment and Interests
7. Other Income
8. Donations from organisations in Hong Kong, for example:
   1. The Community Chest of Hong Kong
   2. Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust
9. Donations from individuals in Hong Kong and overseas, in the following forms
   1. Residues of inheritance
   2. Part of inheritance
   3. Transference of specific property or wealth
   4. Listing the organisation as the beneficiary of life insurance policy
   5. General donations (can be once-for-all donation or regular donation)

In the financial year 2008–2009, the organisation generated income of $339,484,185.14 and the dominant income sources are from Grants and Dues and fees and the organisation has a 3.38% reduce in income from Investments and interest.

People's Food Bank

It is a relief centre on food assistance. It provides free food to the street sleepers and temporary food supplies to the poor who are in emergency. The demand for food assistance keeps on rising in recent years because of the outbreak of the financial tsunami. It provided 1,223,705 meals in 2009 and served 29,746 people. There are approximately 1000 people receiving meals from it.

Its mission is to provide food to the needy on a temporary basis, relieve hunger and to promote social cohesion by encouraging people to donate. Although the amount of government subsidies is small, the People's Food Bank is successful in receiving many donations from the benefactors, like individuals, corporations and schools. For example, the English Schools Foundation's Quarry Bay School held a walkathon and donated HK$68,000 to the Peoples's Food Bank in 2009. Another example is that the Link REIT launched a spending incentive campaign before Christmas in 2008 to donate food to disadvantaged people through People's Food Bank.

There are normally four operating activities for People's Food Bank, namely, People's Canteen, Milk Powder Sponsorship Scheme, Hot Meal Service for Elderly and Lee Hysan Food Assistance. The services are targeted at the low income group, the unemployed, families encountering sudden changes, street sleepers, the poor elderly, new arrivals and infants. To apply for, documents are needed for proof. Dried-food like canned food and rice, meal box, meal voucher and milk powder will be provided to eligible applicants.

Electrical Appliances for the Elderly Program

Electrical Appliances for the Elderly Program, targeting elderly reside in all three main territories of Hong Kong namely Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories, is a program to improve quality of life of elderly, to ensure household safety of the elderly and to care for the abandoned elderly.

Beneficiaries must satisfy all of the following 4 criteria:

1. Being aged 60 or above
2. Facing financial difficulties
3. Living alone or only with spouse
4. Being unaided

Welfare materials given out includes domestic electrical applications, for example electric fan, rice cooker, electric water boiler/pot, radio, TV set, fridge, washing machine, water heater etc.

Applications can be submitted to St. James’ Settlement directly, or through any social welfare organisations. The volunteers of St. James’ Settlement are located all over 3 major territories of Hong Kong. Each application will be processed within 3 weeks upon submission. An application will be denied directly if requested appliances are not unavailable, already possessed by the applicant, or the applicant has a history of rejecting offers from SJS.

In processing applications, St. James' Settlement (SJS) will first examine the case of elderly. SJS will then check the availability of requested appliances. After that, SJS will reply to related organisations / parties. Lastly, SJS volunteer workers will deliver and install the items for the elderly, if necessary.

Legal contractors will be arranged to install the appliances for the elderly. St. James’ Settlement will fully cover or subsidise the installation fee, if any is involved in the delivery of the appliances.

Home Haircut Services

To redeem the self image and give care to the immobile minority, home haircut services target the elderly and the disabled who are unable to leave their home for haircut service. Such services are made available by SJS in all three main territories in Hong Kong. The charge of the services is discounted in accordance to financial capabilities of beneficiaries.

The recipient of the services must fulfill the following requirements:

To receive the benefits, one should be referred by social workers of local welfare agencies.

Throughout the processing of each case, SJS first examines and confirms each referral from local welfare agencies. After that agencies help make the applicants' hair ready for haircut services. Volunteer workers arranged by SJS will then perform the haircut services to the applicants, and the agencies should help washing the hair after the services.

St. James' Settlement joint co-operation with The Society of Hospital Pharmacists

Senior patients of chronic diseases, who are often prolong users of multiple medications, make up a large portion of the ageing population in Hong Kong. Yet, a majority of them actually possess inadequate understanding on their health conditions and on the medications, which in turn increases the mortality rate unnecessarily, according to a survey on the compliance rate, or Compliance, of patient taking chronic medications.

For this SJS has cooperated with The Society of Hospital Pharmacists in providing pharmaceutical care service to :

1. Maximize the effectives of medications
2. Enhance the clinical effect of therapy
3. Increases the compliance rate of drugs
4. Address medical problems due to drug usage
5. Educate and enable the patients to be responsible for decision regarding their own health conditions

Targeting elderly groups and individual in communities, chronic patients and their families, SJS coordinates activities provide better knowledge on usage of medications. These activities include:

1. Drug talks
2. Group drug counselling session
3. Individual drug consultation
4. Home visit drug counselling session
5. Old age home outreach service
6. Publications of educational materials
7. Research & survey

SJS is available to all welfare agencies in arranging above functions. Participants are also welcome to take part in events related to drug therapy. They are also required to prepare their medical documents so as to smoothen the process of pharmacist consultation.

Grant-in-aid Brightens Children's Lives Charity Project

This project, being one of the corporate venture of the St. James Settlement, is aiming to surmount problems, mainly financial problems, students encountered in study and to provide a better study and learning environment to students. All students in Hong Kong aged between 3 and 15 and receiving assistance from the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme or School Textbook Assistance Scheme are eligible to receive services delivered by the project.

The first function is carried out on October 2005 and various functions are held since then. Functions can be, in general, classified into 3 aspects:

1. Academic – related to study affairs, such as,school fees and homework, etc.
2. Non-academic – related to extra-curriculum activities
3. Daily expenditures – related to expenses of study, such as stationery, school bags and lunch fees, etc.

This project recruits companies to organise corporate venture functions and both individuals and members of companies to donate and participate in voluntary work. In 2009, this project had different companies, such as CITIC Ka Wah Bank, Octopus Cards Limited, Wing Hang Bank, Hopewell Holdings Limited, Monster.com, to hold corporate functions. One of the most recent function is the Walkathon Fund Raising which is held on 31 March 2010. Mr. Michael M Y Suen, the Secretary of Education, and Vice-general manager from Wing Hang Bank, are invited to the opening ceremony to show their support the function. Through the marathon with more than 500 participants, $850,000 is raised. Through this project, 24000 students from grass-rooted family,5 kindergartens, 50 primary schools, 15 Secondary Schools and 8 family service centres had received assistance.

Caring Photo Shooting Services

With the improvement and growth in Hong Kong's technology and economy, traditional photo studios located in buildings are facing the problem of extinction. Photo booths, which the photo shooting is done by machine automatically, have replaced those studios. However, the advancement has brought great difficulty to the elderly because they fail to learn how to use the machine and hence, could not take a proper photo. Therefore, a group of volunteers formed "Caring Photo Shooting Services" to give the needy a helping hand.

Volunteers' job: Technical development and photo shooting: Commerce photographer, press photographer, wedding photographer, photography instructor, etc. Contact elderly and trim photos: Retiree, housewives

Target Group:

1. Elderly who are receiving CSSA and living alone
2. Disabled people
3. All social service organisations

The photo shooting services will help individual elderly or disabled people to take passport photo and large size photo (only apply to elderly). Also, their daily life, special occasions such as their birthday will also be captured. And there will be photo shooting for them when they are going to die soon. Any social service organisations could apply for the service or according to functions to ask volunteers out for capturing photos of the different functions.

Home Maintenance Services

To ensure home safety and living quality, "Home Maintenance Services", targeting at the elderly residing in all three main territories of Hong Kong namely Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories, is established by a group of maintenance service volunteers. Beneficiaries must satisfy all of the following 4 criteria:

1. Being age 60 or above
2. Facing financial difficulties
3. Living alone or only with spouse
4. Being unaided
5. Living in a bad environment and with impaired facilities at home

Services can be categorised into five sections:

1. Maintenance and repair of electric wires, electrical appliances, water pipes, water tanks in flush toilet, woodworking, etc.
2. Installation and improvement of lighting, handrail, curtain, bathroom facilities, mailbox, etc.
3. Basic installation of safety devices for a new home
4. For disabled people, there are installations of disabled elderly path, wireless on/off remote control, etc.
5. Instruction of home safety, knowledge of using electric appliances, etc.

Additional services are offered under specific reasons:

1. Delivering electric appliances
2. Hair cutting service at home

Service Types

Continuing Care Services

It dedicates to serve senior citizens in Wanchai in the past 4 decades which is started in September 1967. To express care towards the senior citizens, many aspects encountered by the senior citizens have been taken care, including both short-term and long term problems, such as meals and health respectively.

Family and Counseling Services

It is started in 1971. Its target service group is family members who has encountered various difficulties, such as communication problems in marriage, impatience in parenting and poor adaptation in family life, etc. It helps the family members with various activities and resources, such as providing counseling and book lending services.

In Family and Counseling Services, there are mainly 3 services units, namely

1. "Integrated Family Services Centre"
2. "Assistances for Street Sleepers"
3. "Free Meals Offering Services"

Youth Services

It is started in August 2001. Its target service group is adolescents in society. It not only assists the youngsters to equip themselves with knowledge and skills to let them have the ability to develop their career, but also concerns about the mental health and development of the youngsters.

Currently, there are 4 centers providing youth services, they are

1. "Causeway Bay Integrated Services Centre", founded in 2001
2. "Jockey Club Chaiwan Integrated Services Centre", founded in 2003
3. "Chai Wan After School Service"
4. "Teens' World"

Community Centre Services

It is started in September 1987. Its target service group is all the residents living in Waichai. Its services can classified into services provided within the community centre and beyond the community centre.

Rehabilitation Services

It is started in 1973. Its target service group is the disabled in the society. In 1987, it transformed into rehabilitation services unit. In its 37 years service, enormous employments and services are provided to the disabled and help them to overcome the discrimination hurdles of blending into society.

Teams are set up in different districts of Hong Kong to facilitate the operation of services, they are:

In addition to the service teams, the following service projects are provided:

Corporate Venture

It is started in June 2003. Its target service group is all citizens in Hong Kong. Through Corporate Venture, the St. James' Settlement gains access to corporate with companies to offer different services. The organization classifies Corporate Venture into "Service team" and "Partnership and Alliance Team".

"Service Team" focuses on child services such as education and care services and "Partnership and Alliance Team" focuses on social issues, such as employment and health.

Service Units

Wan Chai

Sai Wan

Sheung Wan

Central

Causeway Bay

Happy Valley

North Point

Chai Wan

Kwun Tong

Tsuen Wan

Tin Shui Wai

Recognitions

St. James' Settlement, as a long-established non-governmental organisation, receives different recognitions from the society.

St. James' S.M.I.L.E – Continued Education Centre

This is a centre providing various of courses to citizens under the corporate venture projects. The quality of courses receives recognitions of ISO9001 from the International Organization for Standardization and Good Training Practice 10015(GTP10015) from SGS HK

Noah's Ark in Ma Wan Park

This is under the corporate venture project with Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. It received the Outstanding Partnership Project Award in 2009.

Publishing Materials

St. James' Settlement has been publishing newsletter bi-monthly since 1977. It is free of charge. The content includes recent services and activities that they held, feelings from volunteers and staff, upcoming events, donation method, etc. In April 2005, St. James' Settlement started to publish their newsletter in paper and electronic form.

Also, St. James' Settlement issued annual report every year, sharing their goals and achievements in the past one year to the public and report on their financial balance and partnership with different firms.

Apart from newsletter, St. James' Settlement will issue other publications on special occasions or after a grand project. "The Ten Most Lightening Project" (Chinese: 十大發亮計劃) is a case in point.

There is another issue called "The Voice" (Chinese: 松柏之聲) which is established in January 1976. It is considered as the first and longest duration free-of-charge elderly magazine in the world.