Eddie Chan founded the Chinese Welfare Trust in 2008 to help elderly Chinese residents in the UK. He says speaking a common language is the first step to building trust. Cecily Liu / China Daily

Joe Hung visits a Chinese man and helps with reading and translating. Provided to China Daily

An engineer-turned-charity-worker looks after elderly Chinese who live alone in Britain, Cecily Liu reports.

London is full of Chinese faces - students, professionals and tourists.

Among them is a growing population of isolated elderly Chinese in need of help, a charity organization says.

"There is no care home or sheltered housing in and around London sympathetic to elderly Chinese people's cultural needs, where they can live in peace, harmony and dignity," Chinese Welfare Trust chairman Eddie Chan says.

"We are here to help because sometimes a little help can mean a lot. For example, a conversation in Mandarin can save an elderly Chinese person from becoming depressed, or reminding them to take medicine can keep them healthy."

Chan went to the United Kingdom from Hong Kong for high school in 1971. He completed an engineering degree at Sheffield University before joining a British engineering company.

In 2001, when frequent overseas work trips became too demanding, he decided to leave the industry and joined the Chinese National Healthy Living Center, a charity providing services for the Chinese community in the UK.

In 2008, Chan founded the Chinese Welfare Trust, which has raised about 80,000 pounds ($121,000) to help elderly Chinese residents.

Chan says many Chinese his team helps came to the UK as young workers between the 1970s and '90s, when the immigration policy was less strict. They typically worked long hours in Chinese restaurants or supermarkets, and now consider the UK their permanent home.

Because these workers mostly spoke Mandarin or Cantonese to their colleagues, their English is poor. Some live apart from their children and have no one when they need help.

Many elderly people live in care homes in the UK, but Chinese who don't speak English often live alone.

"These elderly people need help from someone they trust, and the first step to building trust is a common language," Chan says.

The charity also employs William Thomas as a full-time manager and Joe Hung as a part-time support worker who visits Chinese residents living in about 25 apartments owned by Soho Housing Association, a nonprofit organization providing low-cost housing.

He performs simple tasks, including alerting the housing association about broken facilities.

"If the cooker doesn't work, then it needs to be fixed quickly. Otherwise, the elderly are forced to eat out," Chan says.

The Chinese Welfare Trust has also helped some find suitable dwellings. Although elderly people in the UK who can't support themselves can get free or subsidized local council apartments, they often face difficulties, such as long waiting lists or an inability to fill out applications.

Ling, who wishes to remain anonymous, is an immigrant from Hong Kong, who worked in a Chinese restaurants in the UK.

He was unable to pay his rent after he became redundant in October 2010. He spent months looking for work but was unsuccessful because he is 64, and has arthritis in his hands.

Ling contacted the Chinese Welfare Trust at a friend's suggestion, and it helped him find housing in an apartment block where a Chinese couple resided. It also helped him to apply for local council welfare.

Chan hopes the trust can house several Chinese residents in an apartment block, so suitable facilities can be centralized.

"We'll have a worker who can just visit the Chinese elderly collectively, talking to them in Chinese and helping them to fill in application forms for benefits," Chan says.

"The block is linked with a local Chinese supermarket. The worker can then say to the elderly, 'Give me your weekly shopping list', send the collective order to the supermarket and have all the items delivered to the block in a truck.

"We'll also deliver Chinese newspapers. Maybe they'd like to watch Chinese-language television, so we can install a satellite dish to receive channels like TVB."

Cooked meals could be provided centrally, and the block could be located close to a Chinese community center, which will have facilities for tai chi classes and mahjong.

Chan has suggested such a plan to several London borough councils but has been turned down because, he believes, of limited funding allocated by the central government to care for the elderly.

No borough wants to host a Chinese care home, Chan says, because it would attract Chinese from other boroughs, and the council would be responsible for their benefits.

But Chan remains hopeful. He says his team has come up with the idea of a smaller care home in a borough that already has enough elderly Chinese to fill it.

The trust is looking to buy about a quarter of the units in an apartment block developed by a housing association. The trust would contribute 1 million pounds to buy five to eight units in a 4 million pound apartment block.

Chan says some borough governments may be happy with this arrangement.

"It will mean a lot of fund-raising, but this could be easier once we have a concrete plan, as people are more willing to donate toward a specific project," he says.

Hung says: "Our work saves money for the British government. We look forward to a time when we can help more elderly Chinese."

Contact the writer at cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 06/30/2013 page4)