In the spirit of serving the community, DSD colleagues are keen to take part in various volunteer services and charity activities in their spare time. During the year, the DSD Volunteer Team participated in more than 40 volunteer activities, clocking over 1,200 service hours in total.

Loving and Caring for the Elderly

In 2017, the DSD Volunteer Team expressed their care for the elderly by launching new activity “Lovely Trip with the Elderly”. The volunteers developed empathy and learnt about mutual appreciation and tolerance through personal experience in working and communicating with the elderly. We hope the volunteers can bring these precious values into their everyday lives. “Lovely Trip with the Elderly” was a 9-month series comprising about 20 volunteer services. The “elderly” training aimed at designing interest classes and home visit programmes that are suitable for the aged. The helpers and the elderly built mutual trust and friendship during the activities and many volunteers brought their children along for the meaningful cause.

Widening Youth Horizons and Helping Children Unleash Potentials

During the year, DSD joined “Life Buddies” 2017, a cross-sectoral mentoring scheme launched by the Commission on Poverty, aiming to promote a mentoring culture in the community to facilitate youth’s upward mobility and reduce intergenerational poverty. The DSD mentoring team organised seven activities for about 20 students from San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, inspiring and guiding them through sharing the mentors’ work and life experience. Such interaction enhanced young people’s exposure and helped them develop a vision for their future.

On 5 July 2017, DSD co-organised the second “DSD Job Tasting Programme” with the “Life Buddies” Mentoring Scheme to offer a one-day practical work experience at the Department for ten Form 4 and Form 5 students from Kwun Tong and Tai Po District respectively. The activity sought to help young people explore their career interest so that they can better plan for their further education and career.

Mr. KAN Yim-fai, Assistant Director/Operations & Maintenance, delivered a welcome speech and gave an overview of DSD’s major works. A tour was then arranged for the students to visit our flood prevention facilities, where they assisted their mentors in conducting their “job duties” to gain work experience in a real life work setting.

In June 2017, the DSD Volunteer Team co-organised a "Love and Ignite Talent” birthday party with the Spastics Association of Hong Kong (SAHK) for a group of children aged 4 to 11 with development disorders. Group activities, games and handicraft trainings were introduced for them to exhibit their potential and to bolster their concentration and communication. In December 2017, the DSD Volunteer Team joined SAHK’s “Star Wars Corps Invasion Christmas Party” with a Star Wars unit again. It was a fun-packed day for a group of children aged 6 to 10, with games and presents for all to celebrate the festive season and its spirit of love and care. Through interacting with the kids, our volunteers have gained a better understanding of children with development disorders.

Giving Blood to Save Lives

In March 2018, the DSD Staff Club and Volunteer Team co-organised the “Love and Hope” DSD blood donation day. The event brought in 53 bags of blood to the blood bank of the Hong Kong Red Cross, setting a new record for the number of blood donors on DSD blood donation day and more importantly, helping save lives and bringing hope to over a hundred families.

Fulfilling Social Responsibility and Showing Care and Concern for the Community

DSD was included in the awardee list of Caring Organisation this year in recognition of our dedicated efforts in the past year in promoting the fulfilment of corporate social responsibility and building an inclusive society. In the future, DSD Volunteer Team will continue to work with social service groups to roll out a wide range of volunteer activities to care for and make contributions to our society.

We also participated in and hosted other volunteer services and fundraising charity activities during the year, including:

• “Skip Lunch Day”, “Love Teeth Day” and “Dress Casual Day” to raise funds for services delivered by member agencies of the Community Chest;
• Fundraising activities of various charity groups to help the disadvantaged, such as World Vision's “Skip-A-Meal” and “Oxfam Rice Event” by Oxfam Hong Kong;
• “Coastal Cleanup” to help preserve the precious nature; and
• “Books and Video Discs Exchange” to encourage staff to share used books and video discs to make good use of resources and reduce waste so as to improve the environment.