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The Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Paul Tang, said today (January 29) that the ceiling of the grant under the Partnership Fund for the Disadvantaged (PFD) would be raised for projects which could strengthen support for vulnerable individuals or families affected by the financial tsunami.
Mr Tang made the remark while announcing the launch of the Fifth Round application for PFD at the opening ceremony of Teresa New Life Coffee Shop at MTR East Tsim Sha Tsui Station - a project sponsored by the fund.
He said that as a special measure to encourage non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to provide services for vulnerable individuals or families affected by the economic downturn, a maximum grant of $3 million could be offered to each of the projects on employment assistance, counselling or professional support, such as financial management, for the target clients. With business partners' contributions, the budget for such a project could expand to $6 million.
For the projects serving other disadvantaged groups, the maximum grant for each proposal would be maintained at $2 million as in the last round of applications. With the contributions from business partners, the budget for such project could be up to $4 million.
PFD was established by the Social Welfare Department (SWD) to foster tripartite partnership among NGOs, the business sector and the Government to help the disadvantaged and develop social cohesion in the community. Dollar-to-dollar matching grants were provided to encourage welfare NGOs to expand their network in seeking and securing corporate participation as well as the business sector to take up more social responsibility in creating a cohesive, harmonious and caring society.
Since the fund was set up in 2005, more than $67 million has been approved in the last four rounds of application for more than 80 NGOs to join with more than 340 business corporations to implement 177 welfare projects for about 600,000 disadvantaged people. Major service users included victims of domestic violence, low income families, youth, people with disabilities, ex-offenders, children in care and elders under residential care without social support. Many of the business partners also participated in service planning and served as volunteers.
Being one of the projects sponsored by PFD, Teresa New Life Coffee Shop is run by the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association with the support of its business partner, TNT Entertainment Ltd, to provide invaluable training and employment opportunities for people in need of rehabilitation.
The Fifth Round application for PFD started today and will continue until July 31. Details of the application guide can be downloaded from the SWD webpage at http://www.swd.gov.hk/doc/partnership/App-eng-em.pdf .
Ends/Thursday, January 29, 2009
Issued at HKT 17:28
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