For the past 13 years, CEDAR Fund has organized Barefoot Walk to fundraise for our projects and to let participants experience what it means to live in poverty. In 2014, seeing the seriousness of urban poverty around the world, we want to take our participants into slums and take a glimpse at the lives of the 900 million slum dwellers around the world. Linking to this event is to fundraise for community development projects in slums of India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, and we seek to encourage everyone through the experiential activities to think about how poverty has robbed people of their dignity and the opportunities they should have.
Photo courtesy to Tsung Tsin Mission of Hong Kong Whampoa Church]
In the past summer holiday, young people and pastoral members from Tsung Tsin Mission of Hong Kong Whampoa Church set foot in Ethiopia through joining CEDAR Global Discipleship training scheme. The 24 days experience has proven to be unforgettable as they visited numerous families living in slums. Upon returning to Hong Kong, they shared with us the real-life stories of these families – some are still living in hopelessness, while some have regained hope through God. Here are two stories shared by the team:
While many parents in Hong Kong worry about how their children are getting on in the first month of school, many parents in Bangladesh worry about the well-being and safety of their children at work. In 2012, 17% of the children aged between 5-14 years in Bangladesh had to work as child labourers. According to US Department of Labor, children in Bangladesh are engaged in the worst forms of child labour, primarily in dangerous activities in agriculture and in domestic service. Children working in agriculture may use dangerous tools, carry heavy loads, and apply harmful pesticides. Girls mostly work as domestic servants in private households. They work long hours and are subject to discrimination and harassment, on top of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. [US Embassy, UNICEF]
Living in a home without much free space is always a hot topic in Hong Kong. High population density and rising land prices make people moan and groan. However when relating to the slum families in India, those in India are suffering from many other problems apart from having no free space. Currently there are 65 million slum dwellers in India who make a very low income and thus every day have to struggle with desperate living conditions, insecure environment, and very limited healthcare protection and education resources.
CEDAR Barefoot Walk 2012 has completed successfully on 10 November (Saturday). Nearly 400 participants walked barefoot in Central to experience the hardship of the poor and disadvantaged and to raise fund to support impoverished communities in South Asia’s nations, including India, Nepal and Bangladesh, to be self-reliant. After an opening ceremony led by Dr. CHAN Nim Chung, Chief Executive of CEDAR Fund, participants set out in 15 groups barefooted. They passed through Des Voeux Road Central, Cotton Tree Drive and Ice House Street and other main streets in Central and left their footprints on several famous places like the Hong KongPark and St. John’s Cathedral.
Since 2001 CEDAR Fund has raised fund through Barefoot Walk. This year we held the event in Central, the glamorous, prosperous commercial centre of Hong Kong, letting participants to feel the struggle and deprivation of the poor and disadvantaged people living in urban cities by leaving their footprints of concern for the poor to express their determination to walk with billions of underprivileged people around the world.
A halfway station of the Walk was set at Li Hall of St. John’s Cathedral. Participants could sense and learn about the cultures and daily lives of South Asian people through images (photo exhibition), smell (fragrance of South Asian nations), taste (Indian milk tea) and hearing (Indian music), in order to inspire their interest and concern for the South Asian countries.
Many participants were first time comers of CEDAR Barefoot Walk. Not only do they get a sense of difficulties faced by the poor within a one hour walk, they demonstrated their collective power by helping impoverished communities in South Asia to walk out of poverty. Some participants took photos with their barefoot at the finish stop and some hold prayers for the impoverished communities in South Asia.
Sincere gratitude to the following organisations/groups which support and join the Walk (in no particular order)
Red Cross Hospital School
Hong Kong St. John Ambulance
St. John’s Cathedral
Kinbroad Limited
Arthome
Mr. Kenneth Chau
Hong Kong Police Force
United Christian College (Kowloon East)
Heep Yunn School
Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School
Shatin Baptist Church – Unity Chapel
Hong Kong Baptist Church
Assembly of God Harland Park Memorial Church
Western District Evangelical Church
Hong Kong Foochow Dialect Evangelistic Fellowship – Tsuen Wan Church
Hong Kong West Point Baptist Church
Hung Hom Christian Church – Joshua Fellowship
Christian Central Church (Jordan)
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Church of the Good Shepherd
Sheng Kung Hui St. Thomas’ Church
All Saints’ Cathedral – Esther Fellowship)
Chung Sing Church – Andrews Group
The Church of Christ in China Mongkok Church – Daniel Fellowship
ELCHK Salvation Lutheran Church
Min-nam Chinese Christian Trinity Church
Remembrance of Grace Church (Fanling Church)
Better Together Group
Paul
Rebels
3。Ding’s family
Micah family
Kwong’s family
Introduction of CEDAR Fund CEDAR Fund is an independent Christian relief and development organisation found in Hong Kong in 1991. We work ‘From Church, Through Church’ and serve the impoverished communities in Asia and Africa in partnership with churches and Christian organisations worldwide, together to build a just and compassionate world in Christ.
