Dear all HAC supporters,

Over the past year, we have consistently supported grassroots families and students in their struggle against the learning challenges and economic pressures caused by the pandemic and multiple school suspensions. We have persevered on the long journey of fighting against the pandemic, upholding our three service principles, and taking steady steps forward with various sectors of society towards post-pandemic recovery.

Storytelling for Social Impact

Through engaging and dynamic elements of storytelling, we enabled underprivileged students continue learning and their education despite school suspensions and equip them with practical knowledge for planning their futures. Key highlights include:

• Collaborating with the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum to publish the picture book “Kom Tong Hall and the Masked Detective: The Mystery of the Ho Family’s Treasure.” We have also designed a series of related parent-child activities and public education initiatives to introduce children to the architectural features of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum and Hong Kong’s history.
• Thanks to the support and sponsorship from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Community Chest, we have published the picture book “I Transformed into a Coin!” A specially tailored story video is combined with community education activities, providing children with a clear understanding of financial concepts and cultivating good habits of sharing, spending, and saving from an early age.

Cultivate Positive Mindset

A positive and resilient mindset strengthens our ability to overcome adversity, establish correct values, and actively participate in meaningful activities. Notable accomplishments this year include:

• Our “Read to Change” program, which has been in collaboration with City University for a decade, is the world’s first initiative to address school bullying through storytelling. It has helped high-risk students develop empathy and anger management skills, achieving fruitful results both in frontline service and academia. Our evidence-based approach has been recognised and published in the prestigious academic journal Applied Research Quality Life (2023), demonstrating that HAC’s innovative and evidence-based service methods have gained international recognition in the academic community.
• This year, we extensively engaged with primary schools, kindergartens, and social welfare organisations, actively providing a range of self-developed educational workshops, children’s animated videos, financial resource booklets, reading materials, and story-based education activities to 35,550 students and parents across 1,666 sessions.

Embrace Social Inclusion

As the population ages, Andersen will actively organize people of different ages to participate in community charity events, allowing participants to appreciate each other and share each other’s strengths to achieve harmony between young and old. Examples of remarkable results include:

• Continue to train retired people as “Story Uncles and Aunts” to inspire children through their rich life experiences and achieve cross-generational integration; our “Haoyijiao – Learning Chinese with Picture Books” online event has nearly 900 people Retirees and corporate volunteers participated, assisting 1,000 grassroots school children to learn picture book online activities designed by experts and systematically review Chinese and English vocabulary and grammar.
• Faced with Tai O and Lamma Island, which have fewer resources than urban areas, as we have persisted for the past 25 years, we did not stop when the epidemic was at its most critical and continued to mobilize volunteers to organize visits to the elderly and voluntary hair cutting and other related matters. Take Action to express your concern for the elderly in remote villages.

The Association attaches great importance to improving overall operational efficiency, service quality and effectiveness evaluation methods, and through continuous optimization of organizational governance, staff development and digital transformation, we have In the face of tight resources and various challenges brought about by the epidemic, we will continue to provide appropriate social services.
The association strictly implements the standards of the first group of the “Best Practice Guidelines” set by the Social Welfare Department, including: the board of directors regularly reviews the reserve use and reasonable level of the lump sum grant; by March 31, 2023, the society The total reserves of service units subsidized by the Welfare Department’s lump sum grant are $1,282,149, of which the provident fund reserves of non-fixed employees are $224,029. It is expected that the provident fund reserve will be reduced to $200,000 after the end of the 2022-2023 financial year. Provident fund reserves are used for provident fund contributions for non-fixed employees for designated purposes. In order to make better use of relevant reserves, these funds will be used to improve employee welfare in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

Looking back on the year, HAC has adhered to the three service principles and emerged from the prolonged pandemic to provide a total of 7,278 core services to 122,094 attendees. Additionally, we have offered 1,020 non-core services to 5,213 individuals in need during the pandemic times. These services have been made possible through the funding support of the Social Welfare Department, the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund, the Community Chest, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. We are also grateful for the collaboration of our partners from academia, the business sector, and other professions who have steadfastly walked this journey with us, pooling our efforts to restore vitality to society.

Looking ahead, in addition to celebrating our 60th anniversary with a year-long series of events, we will:

• Further enhance child protection measures by formulating HAC “Child Protection Policy” and related measures.
• Step up our “Read to Change” service to kindergartens.
• Strengthen volunteer training for active retirees, enabling them to engage in exciting community service.
• Strengthen After-School Care services for grassroots students to support them in adaptation of school resumption and encourage their parents, especially women, to enter the workforce.

In this year of widespread adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, which has brought unprecedented impact, we must ask ourselves: What knowledge should children acquire to excel in a future society dominated by AI? Despite the uncertainties of tomorrow’s world, our work experience tells us that reading and storytelling definitely inspire children’s minds, nurture their curiosity for knowledge, and instill a positive attitude when facing challenges. The road ahead is long, and we sincerely invite you to join us on this journey!