The effectiveness of the “Dreams Take Wing Patronage and Award Scheme” for children development

A service scheme ‘Dreams Take Wing Patronage and Award Scheme’ has been operated by the ELCHK- Tuen Mun Integrated Youth Service Centre since 2006. The scheme aims to alleviate the hardship of children in poverty by realizing their dreams. It provides them the opportunities for goal pursuit through studying courses, social groups and attending outreach activities. The scheme shows a good example of a cross-sectors collaboration between a NGO and commercial funder CPA Australia Greater China by providing financial, education and social support to the deprived children. The scheme has helped totally 117 children within these 10 years to settle their tuition fee on taking extra-curricular or supplementary studying courses. About 28 particpants is facilitated for achieving their dream annually. There is no limitation on the maximum year participation, yet the children have stayed in the scheme for around 2.3 years on average. The scheme has received the total amount HKD 717,844 from the donation. About 67% of the funding has been spent into the support of the tuition fees, whereas the remaining has been used for supporting the exposure trips and outdoor activities for all children living in the district. Each children participant is supported with the amount between HKD 250-400 per month dependent upon the course type. The most popular extra-curricular courses being supported are music (27%) and sports (31%) related. For collecting the in-depth comments, 24 children participants and parents have been invited to join individual interviews. They generally agreed to have positive implications acquired from the courses as supported by the scheme, including confidence enhancement, satisfaction and achievement, interest development or becoming more sociable. Yet parent respondents raised more in emotional relief, improvement in health and relationship with parents from their observation. However some remarkable comments are also noteworthy, e.g. aimless or lost thought in some teenagers, insufficient subsidization, emotional disturbance and course changing phenomenon. NGO realizes many potentials and challenges of the scheme. This review report thus aims to provide the organizer significant insights and supportive evidences into the improvement and future planning of the scheme for helping more deprived children in further. Copyright © 2017 WERA-HKERA.