The other day, I had a moment-
identity in the community: in a 2006
A Buddhist in a wheelchair smiled.
around themselves, their gaze ahead.
glance with maybe three thousand
survey, 98.8% of the public knew of
W hen I talked about Ox fam’s
A woman in full abaya, her eyes and
people along Nathan Road, one of
Oxfam and our work.
environmental projec t s in Gansu
brows framed in a black rectangle,
the busiest roads in Hong Kong
It was a day that connected many
with a financier, he told me about
seemed to receive me, although she did
that extends from the harbour
things – private and public space, one’s
community work in Sichuan, and a
not speak aloud.
all the way to the beginning of
self-image and perceptions of others,
marketer-beautician said, “We need to
The day felt like a world.
the New Territories. Banyan trees
trust in a stranger and in an NGO, and
be beautiful inside and out, and the one
This issue of ONE also brings worlds
more.
helps the other.”
overhead, a mosque down the way, shops everywhere. I was one of more than 1,000 people selling 13 tons of rice for Oxfam Hong Kong
So many good people, I know this, from bodies, faces, voices, eyes. One woman who had just lost her job donated $10. I almost cried.
– in small 100g bags. Our
Another woman wanted to volunteer
goals: education about
and took our leaflet as if it were a gift.
poverty, HK$2.4 million for projects in China, and re-affirming our
Maybe it is. A Vietnamese banker wished for good health.
Lau Ah Wan grew up in Guangdong,
Then ‘Ah Wan,’ as her friends call her,
where she graduated from secondary
met a man from Hong Kong through a
school, found a good job at a state-
colleague of her mother's. They started
owned railway company, and enjoyed
writing letters, talking on the phone,
traveling across the country by train
and meeting each other every holiday.
in her spare time. She said she had a
Three years later, in 1994, they married.
lot of admirers when she was working
In 1996, at the age of 28, Ah Wan got
with the railways, but did not like any
pregnant, and she came to Hong Kong
of them.
to give birth and start a new life.
A Life without Abuse – So Happy
together: how people view welfare in
All day, teenagers walked the
Hong Kong, poverty in Bangladesh,
boulevard in their dramatic haircuts,
water in the Himalayas, WTO accession
earrings and noserings, a lot of black
for Laos, climate change all over the
clothing, and needed friends and lovers
planet….
at their sides. And all day, Muslims walked to and
Madeleine Marie Slavick
from the mosque in robes, tunics, veils.
ONE Editor
Children chased each other up and
Oxfam Hong Kong
down the lane. Men in kufi kept a space
emagazine@oxfam.org.hk
She anticipated joy, but all she got was sorrow, and violence. Her husband would beat her. After seven years, she could take no more. She left her husband and raised their son alone. T h e y e a r w a s 2 0 0 3 . A h Wa n sought help from the Social Welfare Department. "Don't expect Government workers to help. They only make life
Ah Wan, a volunteer at a hotline / Tse Chi Tak