Blossoming social capital helps develop mutual help networks

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, attended the biennial Social Capital Builder Award Presentation Ceremony organised by the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) this afternoon (January 6) to commend individuals, enterprises and organisations for their outstanding contributions to the development of social capital, and to encourage different sectors of the community to contribute fresh ideas of cross-sectoral collaboration to address the needs of the community. This, in turn, will make Hong Kong a more caring society.

Addressing the ceremony, Mrs Lam said that the concept of social capital had gradually penetrated into the community and gained the support and recognition of different sectors of the society. Apart from helping participants, CIIF projects could turn them from being helped to helping others, sustaining the culture of mutual help. Besides, enhancing mutual trust among residents and their sense of belonging to the community could enable them to rise to challenges in the long run.

Mrs Lam hoped that different quarters of the city would continue to promote the spirit of mutual help and mutual trust; and to develop different collaborative models to suit the needs of the community. This would sparkle synergy for social capital projects and make Hong Kong a more caring society.

Five enterprises/organisations and two individuals were presented with the Outstanding Social Capital Partnership Award; and three CIIF projects received the Outstanding Project Award. The scope of the Social Capital Builder Logo Award was extended for the first time to cover enterprises/organisations striving to build social capital outside of CIIF-funded projects. More than 300 enterprises/organisations were awarded the logo this year, roughly a double of the number in 2014.

The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung; the Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Miss Annie Tam; the Chairman of the CIIF Committee, Dr Lam Ching-choi; and the Vice-chairman, Professor Joe Leung, also attended the Award Presentation Ceremony to witness and share the achievements in building social capital.

Since its establishment in 2002, CIIF has been mainstreaming the development of social capital over the past 14 years. A total of $432 million has been disbursed for 323 projects across the territory. More than 650,000 participants, including over 80,000 volunteers and 8700 collaborative partners, have directly taken part in the projects and together built over 2000 mutual help networks. The CIIF projects have also developed a number of innovative cross-sectoral collaborative models, such as "medical-welfare-community", business-government-community", "housing-welfare-community" and "family-school-community". This has laid a solid foundation for the future development of social capital in Hong Kong.

Ends

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, addresses the third Social Capital Builder Award Presentation Ceremony at the Central Government Offices at Tamar.

Mrs Lam (front row, centre); the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung (front row, second left); the Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Miss Annie Tam (front row, first left); the Chairman of the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) Committee, Dr Lam Ching-choi (front row, second right); and the Vice-chairman of the CIIF Committee, Professor Joe Leung (front row, first right), with the awardees.

The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung (fifth left), presenting the Outstanding Project Award to representatives of a project awardee.