ONE Always learning with teenagers ONE Huge shadows of violence in Darfur ONE Poverty in Hong Kong workforce ONE Transparency in the workplace ONE Water bottle life jackets in India ONE Joe Mitty
er ob ct O 07 20 October in Hong Kong.
the workforce is ‘informal’ jobs, where
camp, and as a woman, I might have
sparency, while the innovative Oxfam
Around me, one out of every six
salaries and rights are not formally
been raped.
Club (celebrating its tenth year) and
neighbours is poor, and one of seven employees : the income gap is the highest ever and there is no minimum
protected. To the west: the aftermath of huge floods in India and Bangladesh.
Look around again. A few cubicles
our Interactive Education Centre (almost
away, colleagues are monitoring
two years old) are helping teenagers
HK$12 million (about US$1.5 million)
to think, feel, experience, and think again.
wage. On a ten-minute walk to the
Look over to Darfur. If I were a
worth of grants for projects in Darfur
subway station, there are perhaps 100
resident of that dusty and violent place,
and Chad. Other colleagues have just
people just barely getting by.
would I sleep in my house? Would I be
released a major report on poverty
“The world is wide enough for all of us,” wrote Charles Dickens.
To the south: of the many factory
alive? Millions of people have had to
in the workforce, and are pressuring
workers in Cambodia, about 90 per
desert their homes, to abandon their
Hong Kong’s top leader, Donald Tsang,
Madeleine Marie Slavick
cent are women, and Hong Kong is the
lives as they know it. About 200,000
for policy change. Teammates are
Editor, Oxfam News E-magazine
largest investor in the garment industry.
have been killed. I would probably be
making progress with Hong Kong’s
Oxfam Hong Kong
In the Philippines, a worrying trend in
waiting out time in an overcrowded
garm e nt co mp anie s ab o u t tran -
emagazine@oxfam.org.hk
ALWAYS LEARNING So Yuk Yan writes from the Oxfam Hong Kong Interactive Education Centre Oxfam Hong Kong is located in a
is a hut where a farmer might live. On
interactive methods, namely drama, role
typical office building in Hong Kong – a
another day, a dormitory for factory
plays and simulation.
glassy exterior, the ubiquitous marble
workers might be juxtaposed next to
The centre exists in Hong Kong, one
lobby, and a set of three lifts/elevators
a Hong Kong teenager’s bedroom. If it
of the most capitalistic economies in the
that run 18 floors of workers up, and
is wartime, there are devices to filter
world, which has the global reputation
down again. Yet there is part of Oxfam’s
contaminated water. What is it? Where
for only caring about profit. It exists
office that doesn’t look like an office
are we? In one sense the room is basic.
to contribute to the development of
at all.
Look again and it is a mini-theatre,
alternative curricula and pedagogy in
with equipment for lighting, sound and
the teaching and learning of poverty
special effects.
issues with an emphasis on global
It begins with the corridor and its mock-broken walls, just to the right of
Two sets at the Interactive Education Centre: a factory dormitory (top) and a teenager’s bedroom (bottom)
the entrance. Arriving here, you wonder
This 1,800 square foot space, with
citizenship. It is innovative in Asia for
what is behind this design. It is this
changeable sets and props, is the Oxfam
its diversified and experiential learning
questioning that Oxfam wants to foster:
Hong Kong Interactive Education Centre
that puts equitable development at its
the physical space creates a different
(IEC), a place where young people meet
centre.
thinking space in people’s minds. One
and play, a place which provokes them
Since November 2005, when the IEC
student said “the broken wall looks like
to think and ask questions, a place where
was established, Oxfam has provided
a globe” and another, “it sounds like the
they learn and discuss poverty issues,
more than 400 workshops for over
situation after gunfire”.
not in the ordinary classroom setting,
13,000 people from nearly 200 schools
but in a unique environment through
and youth groups. The number of
Open a door, and in one corner there