About Us

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Tin Shui Wai English Tutorial Project

Introduction

This project was started in Tin Shui Wai (TSW), a new town about an hour’s travel away from the city, in April 2015 by a group of Wah Yan College, Hong Kong 1971 graduates. Many residents there are new immigrants from China living in low cost public housing. Being the third poorest area in HK, many family and social issues including domestic violence, mental illness and suicide occurred. Fortunately, street violence or gang related crimes are rare. While the HK Government has continuously improved social services to this new town, discussions with local principals and social workers revealed that many TSW students are far behind the average standard in HK in their studies, in particular English, because of lack of guidance and support at home.

As Wah Yan (WY) graduates, we uphold the ‘Men for and with Others’ spirit to help the needy in society. Given the situation in TSW, we decided to provide a free onsite tutorial service to help students in Forms 2 to 5 whose parents are receiving public assistance or the like and therefore cannot afford to send their kids to private tutorial classes even if they are promising but academically behind. Our program does not aim to produce outstanding students (though it did happen with our continual intervention) but help students concerned to improve their grade, guide them to become responsible citizens and hopefully lead them to climb the social ladder like us. Our objectives are to give back to society what we have taken from it and spread the Jesuit spirit and WY education, which we all have benefited, to a needy group in society.

Incidentally, a year after we started our project, tycoon Li Ka Shing granted every Form 6 TSW student an unconditional financial subsidy of $5,000 thus reinforcing our belief that TSW is an area which rightly deserves our help.

Progress

Beginning with a group of around 80 students served by 12 alumni tutors from both WYHK and WYK in 2015, the free onsite tutorial program has grown to benefit over 1200 students served by over 60 alumni tutors cumulatively upon the completion of its 8th intake in Jan., 2019. Not only we have served schools in TSW, we have expanded our service to an ethnic minority school in Tuen Mun and several other schools in Kwai Chung which being the second poorest district in HK. In the 8th intake of our onsite program, we serve 6 schools in TSW, and other 6 in Kwai Chung in conjunction with the HK Council of Social Service .

After hosting three intakes and serving some 300 students, the project was endorsed by the Wah Yan One Family Foundation (file No.91/7529) in September 2016 and became a charity in HK to which all donations are now tax deductible.

After hosting three intakes and serving some 300 students, the project was endorsed by the Wah Yan One Family Foundation (file No.91/7529) in September 2016 and became a charity in HK to which all donations are now tax deductible.

In December 2016, with the help of 10 overseas and local alumni, a second free online oral English program was introduced to help 60 Forms 5 and 6 TSW students practise oral English online through Google Hangouts their upcoming oral English examination in the Diploma of Secondary Examination (DSE). Lower forms students were admitted in subsequent annual intakes to provide them ample time and opportunities to practise oral English before attempting the DSE.

Starting from October 2017, former members of the WYK Children’s Club (WYKCC) joined force with us to start a third free Life Planning program to provide advice to under-privileged TSW and Kwai Chung students who will be looking for jobs after graduation. With little or even no family support and social connection, they desperately need help to find and secure jobs. By providing them with interactive career talks and hopefully job attachments and mentors, this program enables the students to better understand the various occupations and choices available, increases their ability and competitiveness in hunting for jobs that match with their ability and personality, and hopefully helps them strive for upward mobility in society in the long term.

Concurrently in October 2017, a fourth free program was launched to help under-privileged ethnic minority students in Tuen Mun and Pokfulam to integrate into HK society by providing them with tutors to learn and improve their Chinese and English, arranging social service opportunities (like serving the elderly) or visit to local landmarks (like radio station to serve as DJs) for them to understand more about local culture and meeting WY students of the same age for intellectual and custom exchange, etc. A used musical instrument donation drive was held by both WYHK and WYK students to supply their ethnic minority counterparts with instruments so that they can learn to play with them and foster their musical talent.

Looking Ahead

Our project is gaining recognition from all quarters in HK. Not only the principals of our participating schools and our partner NGO have given us high acclaims, the English competency of our students has generally improved and many tutors are returning term after term. We have been interviewed three times by the Chinese and English press and more demands have been received for our service from not only schools but other charities. We expect to serve even more schools and students in the future.

How You can Help

For WY alumni, we hope you can either participate as a tutor or mentor or make a donation to support this worthy project. You can also help by drawing this project to the attention of alumni who you have contact and encourage them to do the same.

Details of our four programs and donation form can be found in our website in the link: https://tswetp.wahyanhk1971.org . Enrollment forms for the onsite and online programs are also available on the website above.

Our tutors come from both WYHK and WYK, young (WYK ’88) and old (WYK ’63), and from all walks of life like doctor, lawyer, accountant, banker, IT professional, engineer, civil servant, retiree, undergraduate, etc. Nearly all of them do not have teaching experience but given proper training and guidance, they are all more than capable of discharging their duties, in particular as mentors by sharing their life experience with their students.  You can also recommend your wife, children, relatives and close friends who you consider suitable to serve as tutor or mentor, though alumni will be given priority.

For secondary school principal, teacher, NGO or charity trustee, if you are interested in receiving our help to serve your under-privileged secondary school students, please contact the appropriate program head listed below.

Enquiry

If you have any question on any of our four programs or want to get more information, please contact the appropriate program heads below;

General — Tak Eng (WYHK ’71) at takhoieng@gmail.com

On-site English Tutorial Program — Stephen Lam (WYHK ’75) at lamwainang@gmail.com or Herbert Chan (WYHK ’79) at cchanf@netvigator.com

Online Oral English Program — Tak Eng (WYHK ’71) at takhoieng@gmail.com or Ivan Luk (WYK ’82) at ivan.luk@icloud.com

Life Planning and Ethnic Minority Programs — Helen Lok (WYKCC) at helenlsy@netvigator.com


Enclosure – Letter from WYOFF:

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[Last update: 20200723, 20190601, 20181214]