Au Yeung Tat-chor (left) and Lee Tai-shing are determined to carry on what set out to accomplish - helping the underprivileged. Provided to China Daily

Au Yeung Tat-chor and Lee Tai-shing have paid the price for their joint efforts to help the downtrodden. They are socially isolated and frequently are targets of verbal abuse. As Sherry Lee reports, the pair worked hard for their reward - in earning what they call their first 'victory' in five years

It was a chill February morning in Central. Au Yeung Tat-chor, a social worker and a handful supporters, on social welfare were exhausted. Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah was soon to deliver his 2010-2011 budget address. Au Yeung and his supporter sat outside the legislative building, where they had just made a final shot hoping to persuade the government to provide Internet access to those who cannot afford it. The group gathered in the office of a lawmaker to watch the live television broadcast of the speech.

On the screen, the financial secretary spelled out a plan to offer HK$1,300 to pay Internet fees for each family with children on the dole or receiving School Textbook Assistance. Tsang announced that HK$500 million has been put aside for this plan, and the government would review the subsidy amount annually.

"I was so joyful," Au Yeung, 27, recalls. "I thought that our hard efforts over the past few years were not wasted. Our people's wish can be realized with their own efforts."

Across the harbor at a Choi Hung home, comrade in arms Lee Tai-shing, 38, was both excited and skeptical after watching the TV broadcast.

The government's Internet subsidy that will assist 12,000 underprivileged children to do their homework every day came as the pair's first victory in their rights battle, Au Yeung said, adding that the policy can help more than 12,000 poor local children who can't afford Internet access and struggle to do online homework daily.

"Normally government won't listen to what people fight for," Au Yeung said.

Au Yeung and Lee are the only two community organizers for the advocacy group, sometimes referred to as the CCRA, Hong Kong's only body to focus on fighting for the rights of those receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance. Their efforts over the years have aroused animosity and made them subject to the same prejudices often confronting social welfare recipients, who many say are too lazy to work or are outright cheating the government.

Au Yeung and Lee have had people shout at them on the streets and they have been attacked on the Internet.

Their advocacy work sees them attending protests and accompanying dole recipients to meetings with the Director of Social Welfare - all aimed at helping empower welfare recipients and encourage them to speak up for themselves.

The CCRA was set up in 1998 by social workers belonging to more than 10 groups, including Caritas, St. James Settlement and Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese, which formed the CCRA as a platform to unite the needy to respond to what they called a policy injustice when the Social Welfare Department slashed social security payments for the first time.

Au Yeung, joined the CCRA in 2005, soon after the organization received a funding increase from Oxfam, the sponsoring body. Lee came on board later that year.

Sitting in a local restaurant before gulping down their HK$30 set lunch, the pair discussed their work schedules for the day.

"You will go to three buildings tonight," Au Yeung says, referring to their outreach works to assist not only dole recipients but others who are in financial straits and ineligible for welfare.

The pair also helps with individual needs.

"When their requests (for help) are turned down by the Social Welfare Department, we will go with them to see the department's senior officials," Lee said, who also provides counseling as needed.

Now the pair have the backing of over 200 dole recipients who have joined their campaign.

Au Yeung and Lee however carry on the battle at the risk of their own careers. "I worry about my future and whether I can support my family. No social group will hire me, as we were seen fighting so fiercely against the department" said Lee, who is married. At the same time, he grew up in a poor family in Yuen Chau Estate, so he knows what it's like for the disadvantaged. In 2006 Lee, who became a Caritas social worker with a social work diploma, decided to join the CCRA to help to combat policy problems he had witnessed first hand.

While Au Yeung takes on policy issues, Lee focuses in removing social stigma on welfare recipients. Lee gives anti-discrimination talks on streets, in residential buildings and in schools.

The media's negative portrayals of dole recipients have played a key role in raising that stigma. The group's survey on 109 editorials published by three main Chinese newspapers between 1995 and 2006 found that 40 percent of the editorials emphasized that getting welfare is a "personal responsibility", and criticized the CSSA as "raising the lazy", and cheating on welfare payments.

Lee points out that 60 percent of recipients are elderly or permanently disabled.

"We often have to hide our identity in job interviews. One employer has stated it very clearly that he won't hire welfare recipients," said Helen Wong, 50 and a single mother, who lost her garment worker job in 1998.

"They dare not tell others they get the CSSA. Some go out each day to pretend they go to work, and they won't tell their own children," said Au Yeung. "They also avoid seeing relatives."

Au Yeung said his professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Wong Hung, a renowned academic specializing in poverty issues, was a major influence. "He said that social workers are not there just to do services, but they can also change the unjust society."

Au Yeung said he will not back down in his battle.

"The more social injustice, the more I feel that I should stand on their side to speak out for them," Au Yeung says.

(HK Edition 04/10/2010 page4)