She Dares to Change - 2012/13 Annual Report

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Executive Committee Chairperson MaryAnn KING

/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

Vice Chairperson FONG Man-ying

Words from the Chair and Executive Director

In 2012-13, we made grants to 11 projects, and we spent over HKD800,000 on grant-making programs and related activities to advance women's human rights on livelihood, self-definition, legal protection in face of unjust laws and strengthening women’s political participation.

Hon. Secretary FUNG Pui-kee, Brigit Hon. Treasurer LAM Ying-hing Members CHEUNG Hiu-wah, Mandy LAM Chi-chung, Irene SO Yuen-man, Phoebe

MaryAnn KING Chair Bravery is …

You dare to defend your choice in face of discrimination, and have peace in your heart.

You dare to leave your homeland for an unknown future, only to feed the loved ones.

You dare to fight for job dignity even though your labor is not recognized, only to reclaim your basic security.

You dare to be yourself even in face of intimidation by hypocrisy and outdated views.

Bravery is …

You dare to dream the impossible dream in face of poverty and loneliness.

You dare to be an egg confronting the tall wall knowing that you will end up in pieces.

You dare to walk your own way in face of prejudice and discrimination.

You dare to speak the truth regardless of indifference, arrogance and ignorance.

Linda To Executive Director At HER Fund, we continue to take the challenge and walk the path with our grantee partners to uphold women rights as human rights, to address and act on issues threatening the livelihood, self-definition, legal protection and political participation of women who are made invisible and being marginalized. In 2012-13, we are proud to see our grantees making bold and effective strategies to create changes to the lives of women, to assert their rights and to challenge the unjust systems that put them in a vulnerable situation. Empowerment is not only a word to say, but realizing in the work of our grantees when women start to take control of their lives by voicing out and taking actions to fight for their rights through collective strength.

And we are not alone! We deeply appreciate the generosity of our donors, international funders (Mama Cash, The Rita Fund, and Norad) and corporate partners who provide us the financial resources to make our work possible! We are indebted to our volunteers, Share Talent teachers and students who have given their utmost support to us. We are thrilled to have a brilliant team of staff and committed board members who lead our way through. As we are approaching our 10th year in 2014, we are determined and proud to say, She Dares To Change… and She did it with your support !

Honorary Advisors Sophia KAO, SBS, J.P. Ada WONG, J.P. CHAN Yuen-han, SBS, J.P. Jennifer CHENG CHOW hoo-lin (Founding member) CHUNG Yuen-yi (Founding member) Distinguished Friends Christine FANG, J.P. Cyd HO Anna WU, J.P. Honorary Legal Advisor LAM Tze-yan Members of Staff Executive Director TO Kit-lai, Linda Programme Officer KAN Pui-kwan, Judy Associate Development Officer KWOK Ka-chai Part-time Accounting Officer TANG Shuk-on Part-time Programme Officer MOK Yuen-pui

One-person brothel workers, foreign and local domestic helpers, grassroot women Life is tough especially for grassroots and marginalized women who are faced with more than just economic and income pressure, but challenges related to personal safety and human rights protection. Without a whimper under a difficult work environment, these women always stay strong, help each other, make their voice heard and strive for positive changes for themselves and for their peers.

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

/ She Dares to Change Her Way of Livelihood

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> HER Fund

/ BEING MARGINALIZED, SHE STILL STAND S FIRM FOR JUSTICE!

/ A n n ual R e port 2012- 2013

/ She Dares to Change Her Way of Livelihood

The situation faced by sex workers

The situation faced by foreign domestic workers

Irrespective of what brings them to where they are, each worker has her own story. As a matter fact, they gain their living through hard work and sweat. In Hong Kong, there are 2,200 one-person brothels. They have been forced to work alone, facing threats of violence on their own and are vulnerable to the abuse of authority by the police…all these could be ended up in a life and death situation.

HER grant program JJJ Association – Establishing a communication platform for sex workers Through regular activities and newsletters, this program seeks to raise the ability and awareness of sex workers against violence and provide a network of mutual support.

An unnamed sex worker said, “Many of our peers feel the urge to make our voices heard and do something to protect ourselves.”

Lily said, “In the past, when we were robbed or got clients who refused to pay, the police would not handle our cases.

Now, at least, we are treated as normal citizens and our cases are handled.”

Currently there are 300,000 foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong. They left their homeland and work in a foreign place just to secure their livelihood for themselves and their families. Taking care of others’ children yet becoming distanced from their own children as days gone by. Some are even trapped by heavy debts and surviving in hardship and insecurity without knowing their labor rights within the local context.

HER grant programs Helpers for Domestic Helpers – Domestic Helpers Empowerment Program To understand their labour rights through the website and social media. This enables them to seek assistance and protect their basic human rights when they encounter difficulties in their work place.

Project Be Foundation – Raising Financial Literacy through Mutual Help To train voluntary instructors on financial literacy who then help to teach other domestic workers. This mutual help scheme is a sustainable poverty alleviation program for foreign domestic workers and their families.

“Now, I would think twice before I spend my income!”, said one workshop participant.

“We sacrifice a lot and a lot to work here.

Therefore, we have to treasure this learning opportunity to manage our personal and family finance”, said Tess, a former student of the program and the current voluntary instructor.

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

/ She Dares to Change Her Way of Livelihood

The situation faced by grassroots women

Grassroots women can only choose low skilled and poorly paid temporary jobs.

Because they need to take care of their children and family, they can only take up part time and temporary jobs without any labour benefits. If they are sick, they need to look for a replacement worker and not entitled to paid sick leave.

Most of them only purchase medicines at the drug store in order to save money.

Worst still, if their children are sick, they have to stay at home to take care of them and will lose their jobs. When they get old, there is no retirement benefit for them to sustain their living.

“I have learned a lot of new knowledge, which helps my work substantively!......In the process, I realized that I can do a better job in recruiting new members than the staff of the trade union”, said a member of the confinement nanny support group.

“We see that many of our sisters are working hard to support each other.

We hope to invest more in our community education in order that more people understand our situation”, said, Sau Ying, a member of the Concern Group for Women Poverty.

HER grant programs: Hong Kong Domestic Workers General Union – Vocational Mutual support for Confinement Nanny Raise the awareness of confinement nanny about the benefits of part-time jobs, conduct the “Work health and safety survey for confinement nanny”, campaign for legislations to protect part time workers. These activities help to develop woman leaders and promote the spirit for mutual support.

Concern Group for Women Poverty – Leadership training program Through this program, members of the group felt more confident about themselves, empowered to assert their rights and to increase public concern to their situation through community education activities.

Young women and women seeking for asylum From the day since birth, girls are taught through culture, media, and family, to be gentle, thoughtful, obedient and should know how to take care of house chores, to look feminine like having long hair and wear a dress. As they grow up, they should show off their body and use sex as a means to raise the interest of other people and their selfrecognition. After getting married, women are expected to rely on and stay obedient to their husbands and to take care of their kids.

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

/ She Dares to Change Her Self-Definition

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> HER Fund

/ BEING MARGINALIZED, SHE STILL STAND S FIRM FOR JUSTICE!

/ She Dares to Change Her Self-Definition

The situation faced by young women

The situation faced by women seeking for asylum

In their personal growth journey, women are faced with the challenges of being stereotyped, and to handle issues related to sex autonomy. They often lack independent thinking and the autonomy to make their own decision. In the process of forming their own personal values, women are often influenced by their peers and media advertisements, which further reinforced the stereotyping. This often leads to women undermining their uniqueness and self worth.

HER grant program: ASBURY METHODIST SOCIAL SERVICE SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER TEAM – Beautiful Life Project 2012 To raise the ability of school girls to be critical towards mainstream culture and relationship between the two sexes through group gatherings, workshops, community visits and publications. Young women learned to be independent and make their own decision. The program involves 5 schools in Kwai Chung and Tuen Mun with the participation of 35 secondary school female students. The program gave them the opportunity to redefine their self worth, think out of the gender stereotyping, broaden their views and raise their self confidence.

I am searching –Young women empowerment program During the past year, a group of young women, after acquiring a more critical perspective toward gender issues, they formed the group called “ Shero”. Shero aims to further recruit young female, raise their awareness on gender equality around issues related to sex and relationship between the two sexes. 12 young female participants, led by 7 former members of the “Shero ”, have learned about different topics related to sex and gender. They initiated educational programs in different communities related to topics such as sex education, sexual harassment and safe sex.

Annie said: “By taking part in this program, I come to understand more the meaning of “beauty” and improve my understanding about gender beauty.”

Ko Li said “After joining the program, I feel that women should take ownership and fight for the rights to make their own decision, whether it is related to sex or their own autonomy.”

(refugee status yet-to-be recognized)

They are women who have left their countries and sought for asylum in Hong Kong because of persecution related to politics, religion, nationality and sexual violence. They are mostly from South Asian and African countries who have been used to staying obedient to their family and husbands and now an even more unclear personal identity. As their refugee status has not been officially recognized, they have even lower self-esteem.

HER Grant Program Christian Action – Chungking Mansions Service Centre – Empowerment Program for Women Asylum Seekers Through learning and sharing, a group of women (seeking to obtain their refugee status) have been able to better understand the rights of women and strengthen their vocational skills and self confidence.

/ A n n ual R e port 2012- 2013

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> HER Fund

/ BEING MARGINALIZED, SHE STILL STAND S FIRM FOR JUSTICE!

/ She Dares to change Unjust Laws

The situation of foreign domestic women workers

It is difficult to imagine that, in Hong Kong, there are still unjust laws that acquit sexual violence and neglect workers being ill-treated. Through collective effort, women took a daring step to challenge the unjust laws.

Over 90% of the 300,000 foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong are women, and they bear the burden of household work for thousands of Hong Kong families. The existing Immigration Ordinance rules that FDWs must live with their employers (abbreviated as “Live-in Policy”). But this Policy brings lots of negative effects to the FDWs and their employers -- both sides are denied the right to choose whether the FDWs live in or out. It will also increase the possibility for the FDWs to suffer ill-treatment and sexual abuse.

HER Grant Program Mission for Migrant Workers – Identifying (Sexual) Vulnerabilities of Foreign Domestic Workers in Live-in Arrangements and Developing Strategies to Protect Them from its Ill-effects The research conducted found that most FDWs need to work long hours since they are living with their employers. Some of the female FDWs need to live with their employers’ grown-up son in the same room, and some of them even live in a room that has CCTV.

“ We are workers. We are not slaves !” “ Change the live-in policy! Make live-out an option ! “ , chanted the FDWs at the “End the Compulsory Live-in Policy” press conference.

/ A n n ual R e port 2012- 2013

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

/ SHE DARES TO CHANGE UNJUST LAWS

The Situation of Women Bodily Labor

Among the 3 secretaries of departments and 12 directors of bureaux, there is only 1 woman (6%); Out of the 70 Legislative Council members, only 11 of them are women (15%); In the functional constituencies of the Legislative Council, only 13% of the members are women; This leads to the question of whether a male-dominated governance can truly represent the interest of women from different strata and background.

The current Sexual Discrimination Ordinance does not protect service providers if they are sexually harassed by customers. That means occupations like flight attendant, customer service staff, waiter or waitress and salesperson are not protected by the Ordinance. Local women’s groups have been fighting for amendment over the past 10 years, but the government keeps putting it off.

HER Grant Program The Association for the Advancement of Feminism – The Young in the Campaign of the Bodily Labors’ Rights Advocacy The Bodily Labor Group from AAF called for social concerns and urge the government to amend this unjust law. In 2011, the Group did a research and found that young staff aged from 18 to 25 in the service sector is the high risk group for sexual harassment. This year, the Group continued their education and organizing work by holding a young women model photographic contest which aimed at organizing young women and those in the service sector, especially young women model, to participate in the advocacy action.

All these efforts successfully urged the Equal Opportunity Commission to review the Ordinance in mid-2013, and admitted that amendment is necessary.

“We need to protect ourselves, but also we need the protection from the law!” , a young woman model expressed her indignation to the Ordinance’s loophole, and felt she wanted to change it.

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

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/ BEING MARGINALIZED, SHE STILL STAND S FIRM FOR JUSTICE!

/ A n n ual R e port 2012- 2013

/ She Dares to Participate in Politics

ADVANCING WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Partnership in Action: Non-funding support

HER Grant Program Hong Kong Women’s Coalition on Equal Opportunities ( consisting of 11 women’s organizations to promote women’s rights and monitor the progress of promoting gender equality by the Government) – Empowerment Project on Women’s Political Participation (Year 2011 – 2013) To enhance women's capacities and influences on election and social policies. The Coalition developed platforms to put pressure on all election candidates to acquire a women's perspective and to adopt measures in enhancing women's human rights.

It also monitors the implementation of the promised measures.

Changes Made • 63 grassroots and marginalized women joined the “Women Leadership Training Workshop”. The participants’ knowledge and skills on analyzing social policies, lobbying and communication skills were raised. This enhanced their capacities to promote their rights within the political arena.

• Women representatives organized meetings to express their appeals to 4 political parties. These political parties did follow up their appeals, and reported back to the Coalition proactively.

“It was another level of knowledge and experiences which I did not know before.

Now I have a different perspective of my everyday life with a political dimension”, expressed a participant of the Women Leadership Training Workshop.

• 50 women, scholars and college students held a forum to gather feedback on the Policy Address 2012. They held a press conference to announce their statement and wrote a feedback proposal on improving women’s situation to put pressure to the Chief Executive to adopt a women’s perspective in his policy plan.

• There were more than 20 pieces of media coverage on the Coalition’s action to pressurize the government, election candidates and Chief Executive to adopt its proposed statement. The Coalition used the "name and shame" method to enhance their political accountability for the promotion of women's rights.

We see our grantees as partners who shared the same mission to promote gender equality and advance women human rights. That is why we closely communicate with them, in a trustful and respectful way and is determined to play a more proactive role to support their work than solely providing financial support. Last year, we achieved this role in many thoughtful and effective ways.

She Bridges The grassroots and marginalized self-help women’s organizations that we prioritize to make grants to are mostly small, invisible and with very limited resources. We empower our grantee partners by creating opportunities to connect them with various stakeholders and enable them to access potential new resources.

Linking with our individual donors Last year, we organized two visits to grantees , inviting our donors to participate in the visits, allowing them to know more about our grantees’ work and learning the stories of the women. Donors were generous to donate to them directly after the visit and some even mobilized other resources to give to our grantees.

Bridging and recommending to international funders Our grantee partners who are small and marginalized groups may not be known to international women’s funds. Last year, we supported our grantees by writing recommendations for 6 funding applications to the Global Fund for Women based on our partnership experience with them. It was

encouraging to see that, with our input, grantees were able to access more information and resources to develop their work.

Bridging In-kind donations from corporates and donors Last year, we were approached by corporates and donors who proposed to donate services and gifts to our grantees. We connected our grantees’ members

to join in the special event organized by Bobbi Brown, with international make-up artists providing make-up service to our grantees’ members. They enjoyed so much with the new look and feeling refreshed with the fascinating experience.

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/ B E I N G M A RGI N A L I Z E D, S HE ST I L L STANDS F IRM F OR JUST ICE !

/ An n ual Report 2012-2013

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/ BEING MARGINALIZED, SHE STILL STAND S FIRM FOR JUSTICE!

/ A n n ual R e port 2012- 2013

/ Partnership in Action: Non-funding support

THANK YOU! Our Heartfelt thanks to the following foundations, corporates, organizations and friends for their generous support in the past year. Thank you!

Building a community of practice, women sharing their wisdom Last year, in order to provide opportunities for our grantee partners to learn from each other and to share their wisdom in practice, we organized several meetings with grantees who worked with young women and girls. It was an empowering experience for them and fruitful in learning from each other.

Providing support and input to programs in progress It is not unusual that grantees may face challenges in the course of implementing their programs. We provide our support by giving thoughtful advice, participating in their meetings to learn from them and to resolve challenges together.

Providing exposure opportunities to other funders Last year, we organized a meeting for our grantees to meet with the visiting Asia/Pacific program officers from Global Fund for Women. In September 2012, two representatives of our young women grantees joined with our program officer to attend the Community of Practice meeting in Nicaragua organised by Central American Women's Fund and Mama Cash which allowed them to meet and to share their work with young women from other parts of the world and to meet with various international women funds.

Connecting professional and resourceful volunteers Small organizations may come across difficulties in managing their organizational work due to a lack of experience and skills. Last year, we mobilized professional volunteers to our grantees in helping them on finance management and enhancing their administrative capacity.

Corporates & Organizations

International Funders

Sponsors and Performers of “HER Talent Show 2013 “:

Mama Cash, The Rita Fund, International Network of Women’s Funds, Women’s Funding Network, Norad

Sponsors: Bobbi Brown, Vitasoy International Holdings Ltd, Talent 100, MADISON Communications, RTR, The Green Pagoda Press Ltd, Kiki Ho Performers: Lung Siu Kwan, Power Star, 舞林群英, 傳統跆拳道協會, BIG Sammy, Coby Coby Dance, Mr & Mrs, Talent Mill of HK College of Technology, Y.Tick Entertainment & Production, JUST Acappella, 范嘉駿, 楊曉彤, Kiki Ho, Kikibaby Funky Dance Bobbi Brown: Chose HER Fund to be the beneficiary of their Pretty Powerful Campaign for Women & Girls. They donated part of the proceeds of Pretty Powerful Pot Rouge to HER Fund.

Glam-It!: (formerly known as GlamGirl): Donated raffle ticket proceeds to HER Fund at the soft launch party of the brand on 29 November 2012.

Rainbow Village: Provided volunteers and raised fund in their annual dinner to HER Fund.

LTBT Co. Ltd.: Assisted HER Fund to produce annual report with special discount.

Individuals Sincere thanks to 300 individual donors who generously support our work. The acknowledgement list of the individual supporters is in our website www.herfund.org.hk/ individual

Special Acknowledgement Lung Siu-kwan, Dean Siu, Ho Sik-ying, Bowie Lam, Winnie Ma, Leung Pui-fung, Gina Wong, Heidi Chung, Stephen Tong, Dorothy Wong, Ingrid Lam

Voluntary Talent Teachers Eliza Chung, Gary Woo, Gumgum, Haminah, Irene Lam, Joie Yiu, Joyce Cheung, Joyce Yeung, Juliet Chu, Kitty Lui, Lee Sau-ling, Mandy Wong, Natalie Lui, Ruth Fok, Terry Hui, Venus Hung

The Vixens Burlesque Troupe: Donated proceeds of their drama performance Virgina Monologues to HER Fund on V-Day 2013 (A global movement to end violence against women and girls) after deduction of cost.

Cover Photo

Asian Charity Services, Charitable Choice, FAIRTASTE 公平棧, i Donate, NIKE, Inc., Department of Social Work and Social Administration, HKU

Pixel Action Studio

Eddie Law

Editing, Design & Production

/ BE ING M ARGINAL IZ E D, SHE ST IL L STANDS F I R M F O R JU ST I C E !

/ A n n ual R e p ort 2 012 -2 013

Total HK$

HK$134,215 10% HK$27,427 2%

Fundraising 籌款工作 Education & Publication 教育及刊物

(For our audited financial report, please refer to www.herfund.org.hk) (請到www.herfund.org.hk參閱詳細核數報告)

1,375,339

HK$256,478 19% Administration 行政

Total HK$

HK$151,758 11%

HK$805,461 58%

1,307,366

HK$8,592 1%

Management 管理

Grantmaking & Programs 撥款項目及活動

Expenditure 支出

Other 其他

HK$43,335 3%

HK$494,889 38%

Local Fundraising 本地籌款 Local Designated Donation 本地指定項目捐款

HK$760,550 58%

International Foundation 國際基金

Income 收入

基層婦女項目工作上的支出佔總支出近六成。本會的目標堅定不移，繼續以有效、 高透明度及善用資源的原則，作為我們管理財務的方向。

婦女動力基金在過去一年，透過海外基金撥款、本地籌款及各界熱心人士的捐獻， 共籌得超過港幣一百三十萬，全年總支出近一百三十七萬，而我們用在關注邊緣、

59% of which was spent on grantmaking in support of the marginalised grassroots women.

We stand firm on the principle of effectiveness, transparency and maximizing the use of resources in our financial management.

Last year, HER Fund received more than HKD1.3 million from international foundations, local fundraising and individual donors. The total expenditure was about HKD1.37 million,

Financial Report 財政報告

2012-13

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