TAFS, Towards A Fairer Society, is a community funded non-profit project in Hong Kong whose objective to is to highlight the inequalities of Hong Kong community and to promote awareness of it.

As a volunteer to SoCO (Society for Community Organization) last year, I followed their community helpers to home visits to understand more about the housing problems in Hong Kong. What I found was not just a housing problem, but a poverty trap where people's welfare money had to be spent on expensive and squalid subdivided units (SDUs) in the form of cupboard beds, cages and windowless partitions, which left them barely enough to have two meals a day. Even more shocking is the number of people living in such conditions -- 200,000 and growing, and the estimated wait for rehousing of 6-10 years. This is unacceptable as Hong Kong is supposed to be one of the richest cities in the world. What bothers me is the complacency which both the government and society at large view this situation. Behind all the rhetoric, solutions to housing supply has dragged on, and there is not much hope for change for these people any time soon.

The idea was formed in my mind to start a community project, TAFS, which can highlight the very simple problems these people face everyday in living in such cubicles, so as to let people have a deeper understanding of their predicament. 

Every year, SoCO donates 200 fans to these families to relieve them from the suffocating heat. These low wattage fans can help to ventilate their windowless dwellings and make their summer more tolerable.

My objective is to raise  a maximum amount of HK$40,000 for 200 fans in support of SoCo's target. All monies raised will be directly donated to SoCO. Please show your support by donating. Thank you!

For more details see SoCO’s website at http://www.soco.org.hk/index_e.htm