Written by: Professor Ip Hon Ho Alex (Assistant Professor, Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
The economy of the Roman Empire was founded upon oppression and exploitation. In the early period, one third of the Empire’s population were slaves; while another third were freed slaves. There were also many people who owned no land and served no masters. These people were often employed as casual workers or day labourers. To put it simply, the relatively high economic growth during the early period of the Roman Empire was a result of exploiting manual labourers who did not have much power to fight for their own interests.
[Annual Report 2011-2012] Mobilising Churches and Christians
Heep Woh students served in the tutorial class for minority ethnic students and learnt about difficulties face by the these students studying in Hong Kong
Review of 2011 to 2012
Last ministry year, we worked with HeepWohCollege to conduct a series of workshop to 15 Form Four and 5 students on concerns for the minority ethnic groups. The students visited the minority ethnic families and provided tutorial class to their children. Clara, one of the participants, used to think the minority ethnic people looked aggressive. After the five workshops she changed her impression on them and found that they are no different with other people and can be friends.
A group of teacher-to-be joined a workshop to learn how to build a hawker trolley and be a hawker at Sham Shui Po mid-night market
Learning and Prospect
In recent years, we tried to integrate theatre education in our sharing among Christian youth and students, encouraging them to reflect about poverty issues, share their thoughts and give response. From our experience, we found that a good theatre education can make students enjoy the class and lead them to explore new point of views and feeling and think about problems behind poverty through post-drama debriefing.
In coming ministry year, we hope to strengthen and emphasise the link between poverty and Christianity, encouraging the youth to think about the Gospel and mission from different angles. We begin to talk more emphatically about global poverty issues to widen their worldview. Next we will gather youth leaders sympathetic to helping the poor to specially equip them as organisers to mobilise the public to respond to poverty locally and else where.
We used drama to facilitate the sharing to the youth from Operation Mobilisation (HK)
Hand’s Sharing
‘In past three years, I held talks for the youth. Quite often these talks are not “incarnated”- my talks are not the same as what I do in my daily life. The difficulty of “incarnation” is not only on understanding the different structural sins, it is about whether I can win over my weakness on an appetite for food, fame and power. A pursue of an “incarnation“ education is about a consistency in our teaching and lifestyle, this is a challenge to an educator. It is only by this our sharing can be truthful.’
