Personal Reflection (Chan Kei Fung Edward) 1E (1)

This is the first project we have done in Liberal Studies. To my astonishment, it is entirely different from my projects in primary school. We have done alot of things which we haven't tried before. A prime example is that we are using Blogger to finish our project. It made my typing skills improved tremendously.

When it comes to the topic "poverty", frankly speaking, we are not experts of exploring the problem in the society. For a secondary student, it is difficult to finish the whole project on myself. So, we tried our best and stayed up late lest our work cannot be finished on time.

It is also a challenging task to analyse the data as we need to plan and elaborate the points well and wisely. Moreover, it is believed that doing project can really let us have a chance to try what is enquiry study and how to cope with them in Senior Secondary stage.

The most enjoyable part of this project is questionarire analyse. Though it is not an easy work, I can see lot of interesting answers to our questions. It is interesting to see the others' perpectives.

Lastly, I would like to express my deepest gratitiude to my Liberal Studies teacher Mr. Chin. With his valuable ideas and guidance to our project, we can do make it better as well as more meaningful!

Personal Reflection by Wang Man Yuen 1E(35)

This is my first time of doing the Liberal Studies project and it is my first project in F.1.At the beginning I felt happy and excited. The first time we talked about is the title is what ? Group leader said that he had thought this question and proposal ‘The million of people’. Everyone said it was a great title, so we use this for our title.
Poverty is a worrying question. Poverty around the world has already been so trouble throughout the question. In Hong Kong, most of the poor people is the elderly. Between rich and poor is widen, so Hong Kong Government need to help the poor people to less the difference.
Finally, I have learned more about poverty. I think that our group needs teamwork, because it is very important. If we have team conflict, we can solve this problem and continue to finish the project.

Personal Reflection (Alexander Wan)1E(34)

            The number of poor people in Hong Kong is an important issue in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has the widest gap between rich and the poor people.

            In the Central Business District of Hong Kong, it is very common to see a lot of luxury shops selling expensive bags, shoes and jewellery. The territory's property market is one of the most expensive one in the world.  Recently, a posh 5-bedroom apartment in the exclusive Peak district had a world record of $71,280 Hong Kong Dollars per square foot, even higher than that at Hyde Park 1 in London.

            But on the other side of Hong Kong, poor people are living together in ultra small flats. People become poor as almost everything in Hong Kong is relatively expensive. Poor people cannot afford the high prices and mostly end up begging in the busy streets for money.

            In this project, I found out that the problem of poor people in Hong Kong is much more serious than I thought. Most of the Hong Kong people focus too much on becoming rich, buying and selling stocks and neglect about the poor people in Hong Kong, which makes the gap between the rich and poor people become wider and wider. Other than figuring out why people become poor and what their living standard is, we have thought of the solutions for the poor people.

            Of course, other than the knowledge I have learnt during our researches and collecting data, I have learnt many skills for communicating and cooperate with people. After more than 6 months of hard work, from making the title of our project to practicing the presentation and preparing to present, I learnt about how to cooperate with others, the skills of interviewing poor people, how to solve problems and conflicts between teammates, and skills for presenting a report.

            I have learnt so much knowledge and skills from this project and I think they will be valuable to my future studies and career. I will also try my best to help the poor so that they live happily and peacefully.

Personal Reflection (Leung Ho Yin, Joe)1E(17)

Poverty, is a big and alarming problem in Hong Kong and over the world. And thus we chose 'poverty' as our project title. After the completion of the project, we learnt more about poverty. And we notice that the government has just done a little things to solve the problem so far. But the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Therefore, we have searched for many information and have some interviews to know more about the solutions for helping the poor and the meaning of 'poverty' in people's mind etc.. I think that our project can help all of you to take a deep look on the problem of poverty.
Moreover, we also learnt about the skill how to do an interview. We must be brave and we should know how to encounter with the problem when the interviewees refuse to do the questionnaire.
At last, I also learnt that team work and cooperation is very important! Our group has some arguments at first. Then, we stop doing our work for a few days! But we know that the deadline is approaching and we must move on the project. Finally, we finished our project on time.

Personal Reflection (Kwok Sai Pui Sam)1E 10

Poverty is a global issue. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening but it seems the government has little power in solving the issue. Through the literature review, it generates a lot of unanswered questions of the solutions to the poverty issue.
How to answer these questions is difficult. The balance between the free market force society and the socialist communal society is difficult to obtain. I hope our project can show some hints to the solutions to this issue. Another thing I learnt is to be brave when doing the street interviews for collecting data. We encounter a lot of interviewee refusing to answer. In addition, the analysis of the data collected in interesting. Finally, team cooperation is very important. We encounter team conflict initially. We argue much about the flow of work and team mates’ input. Fortunately, we solve the issue and generate this project successfully by team effort.

Group List with the assignd duties for each member ***

Chan Kei Fung Edward 1E (1) (Group Leader)
Assigned duties
1.Stage 1 and 3
2.Conclusion
3.Questionnaire Editing
4.Title of Study
5.Research Design and Methodology
6.Questionnaire Analysis
7.Interviewers
Kwok Sai Pui Sam 1E (10)
Assigned duties
1.Stage 1 and 2
2.Background of Study
3.Project Cover
4.Questionnaire Editing
5.Questionnaire Analysis
6.Interviewers
Leung Ho Yin Joe 1E (17)
Assigned duties
1.Stage 2 and 3
2.Background of study
3.Questionnaire Editing
4.Interviewers
5.Acknowledgement
6.Powerpoint for Presentation
7. Conclusion
Wan Ka Chun Alexander 1E (34)
Assigned duties
1.Stage 1 and 3
2.Interviewers
3.Title of Study
4.Introduction of the project
5.Searching photos
6.Conclusion
7. Powerpoint editor
Wang Man Yuen 1E (35)
Assigned duties
1.Stage 1 and 3
2.Interviewers
3.Research Design and Methodology
4. Questionnaire Analysis
5. Powerpoint for presentation
6. Title of Study

Research Design and Methodlogy ***

Research Design and Methodology
Since the enquiry question is quite comprehensive, we need to be more careful to do the research design and use the right method to research. In this project, our group will base on some data and analyse them. Nevertheless, interview is one of the most important steps in this project. We have conducted two interviews with similar questions. We would like to compare the two results and make it more accurate. One is just conducted in the street, the another one is conducted by inviting schoolmates, classmates and teachers to do our questionnaire. Moreover, the questionnaire will consist of short response and multiple choice question. The two interviews are aimed to investigate how Hong Kongers understand what is 'poverty', their perspectives and the impression. It is really a pity that we cannot find the poor to do an interview, it would be better if we can.
For the analysis of the data, we will use the data from HKGOV which is the most accurate, detailed and up-to-date origin. We will try to elaborate and extend the points by using data to prove.

Title of Study ***

Title of Study
Before we started working on the project, our mind come up this ,question 'why do you choose this topic as your Liberal Study Project'. We mainly developed the answer into three points. Firstly, 'poverty' is an acute problem that we need to solve. It is not a simple task to investigate it. It seems that the project is challenging. Secondly, we were born into a wealthy family luckily, a lot of resources are at our fingertips. Hence we want to know more about the poor family and cherish our own things that we are having now.
To be a sensible and elite student, we need to widen our views and broaden our horizons. We should care our surroundings. Like the problem of poverty in Hong Kong, we would like to explore some knowledge from this task. This liberal study project is a good chance for us to enhance our ability of analysing and data collecting.
Our objective for the enquiry study is to know the poor in a deep extent. So we based on 'WH- Problem' (why, who, where,how,what) to set our highlight questions. It is also the way of researching design and Methodology. Simply speaking, we would investigate the poor in different perspective, just try to find out more. Find the most suitable way to tackle the problem of poverty is definitely our objective, goal of this project.

Important Notice

Dear all my fellow group mates:
Since the deadline is approaching us, we must complete the project in a great speed. I hope u all guys can hand-in your personal reflection by Tuesday night.Here's some guidelines of writing it.Please do follow it!!
1. Use English
2. more than 150 words
3. Hand in both hard and soft copy
4. Publish in the blog and use this format for the heading.
e.g.Personal reflection (John)
5. You should write some personal feeling after finishing the project,what did you gain from doing the project etc
Hope you all can hand-in the work on time!! Word hard all of us!
Edward Chan

Conclusion ***

Poverty, is a large, alarming problem in Hong Kong society. You may see a billionaire, wasting money all the time. On the contrast, you may see a beggar, make a living with lots of difficulty and tears all day long. Hardly can you believe this insane scene!
This is what we called the disparity between the poor and the rich. Some of them may really became poor just because of his cursed luck, but I am sure this is just the minority. After doing Stage 2, we realized that poverty can be ascribed to three points,'government', ' discrimination' and 'unemployed'. It is not a piece of easy task to uproot the problem of 'poverty', a long time will be needed.
During the data collecting, our group members really experience the lives of the poor. Little did we realize that how deplorable they are ! After the mock calculation of the income of a family that are under the risk of poverty, all we know that they cannot maintain their lives without the help of the poor.
And the questionnaire shows out that Hong Kongers don't really know how to define the word 'poverty'. However, their sympathy to the poor will be appreciated and complimented.
In Stage 1, we have found out a lot of the data about the poor. It is hard to imagine that an urban slum is on the most majestic, brilliant part of Hong Kong, Kowloon Peninsula. Little can we believe that the teenagers are the most risky age groups which are under poverty.
In Stage 3, we have mentioned about a lot of measures to solve the problem of poverty. A lot of ideas have been implementing world-widely. It is a must that the HKGOV should give a try and use more innovative to eliminate poverty. Some policies like minimum wages, have been used fr a period of time in some well-developed countries. Three phrases are the conclusion of Stage 3, 'Protect the interest of the labours', 'Try to help the poor to employed' and 'Provide a better place to let the poor live on'.
A consensus must be reached in order to solve the problem of 'poverty'. It is reasonable to stop all the argument in the society and find the root of the problem. Save the poor in the hot water!

Stage 1 Purpose 4 ***

Purpose 4: To collect the data of the poor(who)
With the reference to the HKGOV report, there are 210000 children (24.5%) which are in the family under poverty. 180000 teenagers (20%), 270000 old people (32.1%). Since children haven't got an ability to be a bread-winner in the family, so it won't be the focus. However, the condition of the teenagers are really making us worry. Some teenagers gradually graduated from school,but they are out of employment. Also, most of their parents are middle-aged, it is hard to be the bread-winner. They are the most baffling cases focused by the society. For the old people, the poor one was 32.1% of the total no. of the old people. They are hard to earn for a good living. Some may rely on the financial help from HKGOV, but it is still deplorable.
The age group with the largest amount of poor people is middle-age. On account of lots of young labours compete with them to get the job in the society, they would be abandoned by the employers due to their ages. They lost their job and their income would be a perplexing problem.
To answer this highlight question, we may just let the teenagers,middle-aged people and the old people be the foregone conclusion.
Writer:Chan Kei Fung Edward
Kwok Sai Pui Sam
Wan Ka Chun Alexander
Wang Man Yuen

Stage 1 Purpose 3 ***

Purpose 3: To come up the idea of where the poor people scattered in Hong Kong
We all bet that there must be some people under poverty in every district in Hong Kong. However, there must be a district with most people who are under poverty in Hong Kong. In order to define this, we must find the median monthly household income of every district and see which one is the lowest. This is the most fair, accurate and easy way to find out.
With the reference of the Population And Household Statistics Analysed by District Council District which is published in 2007, Sham Shui Po had the lowest median monthly household income, which is $13700. And the district had the highest median monthly household income is Wan Chai, which is $28000. This shows the large disparity between the poor and the rich in Hong Kong.
Also, we found out some statistics about the low-income people percentage in different districts. The result is the same. The low-income people in Sham Shui Po shares 25.8% in the total population in the district.
We can simply leap to the conclusion that the largest number poor people live in Sham Shui Po.
Writer: Chan Kei Fung Edward
Kwok Sai Pui Sam
Wan Ka Chun Alexander
Wang Man Yuen

Introduction of our LS Project ***

Welcome! This is the work of LS Group 5. The project is aimed to be solved to the questions, which are also the highlight questions of this project.

Title :The million of the poor people

Purposes:1)To figure out why they become poor

2)To find out what is their living standard

3)To come up with the idea of where the poor people scattered in HK

4)To collect the data of the poor(who)

5)To investigate the policy which is used by HKGOV to eliminate poor and list out some new ideas.(How)


Stage 1: Purpose 2 , 3, 4 (in the above) and an interview with the poor will be needed
Dates:27/1/10- 12/2/10

Stage 2: Purpose 1 and collect the data to support the reasons
Dates:10/2/10- 26/2/10

Stage 3: Purpose 5 and find out data of the government policy against poor
Dates:1/3/2010- 12/3/10

Stage 4: To draw conclusion and cope with the Acknowledgement and Self Reflections Dates: 8/3/2010- 15/3/10

LS Project Stage 1 Purpose 2 ***

Purpose 2: To find out what is their living standard

In 2009, the median of the income per family is $17500. For the family under the poverty, they may receive less or half of the median ($17500/2=8250)(<8250).>

Food: $25 per meal per person

So, 25x2=50 50x30=1500 1500x4=6000

They need to pay $6000 for food supply.

Transportation: $10 per person per day

So, 10x30=300 300x4=1200

They need to pay $1200 for transportation fee.

Rent: $1500 ( For public housing estate)

They need to pay $1500 for the rent.

Extra expenses: $1000 (e.g.Electic, water)

6000+1200+1500+1000=9700>8000

So, this shows that without the financial help from GOV like CSSA, they cannot afford their lives for basic needs. Their living condition is really astounding. It is hard to imagine without the help of GOV, how would their live be!

A family consist of two bread-winners are really lucky! Some unattended old people may just rely on the financial help of CSSA, Old Age Allowance and some insignificant saving. If they are sick, they may just rely on the Free Wavier For Medical Services. They are deplorable!

On the contrast of the rich, there is really an enormous difference. No wonder we become the first in the Gene Coefficient of Asia counties.

Writter: Chan Kei Fung Edward

Wan Ka Chun Alexander

Kwok Sai Pui Sam

Wang Man Yuen

Background of Study ***

Background of Study

Refer to our title' A miilion of poor people', the definition of the 'poor' is argumentive. For the some countries, their government would establish a poverty line, in order to define a family is poor or not. In Hong Kong, HKGOV has not established a poverty line. As a sequence, people who get

the financial help of CSSA shall be defined as under 'poverty line'. Another way is to find to the median, the income per family who is below the half of the median would also be defined as below poverty line. (Refer to Oxfam website) In the first half of 2009, the percentage of poverty per capita is 17.9%, which is also based on the second way mentioned above to measure.

Also, the disparity between the rich and the poor is related to this project. Gene Coefficient is one of the way to measure the disparity. Hong Kong is ranked the first place in Asia. This means the disparity between the rich and the poor of Hong Kong is the largest among all the countries in Asia.

'Poverty' is the alarming task in Hong Kong Society. We hope that HKGOV can find the root of the problem and take the initiative to uproot the problem.

Written by Chan Kei Fung Edward

Stage 3 ***

The policy that can used nowadays world-widely to eliminate poverty can be classified to 3 groups.

A. Short-term Financial allowance

eg. CSSA

B. Long-term policy

eg. Provide better education, MPF

C. To protect the interests of the labours

eg. Minimum wages

A. Short Term Policy: For the poor in Hong Kong, they can enjoy the following allowance or can be subsidized in the following way. 1.Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA)(Exist in HK)

This scheme is aimed to provide a safety net for the low-income people, this let them to meet the prescribed standard.However, the applicants must willing to seek for a full-time job. Also, the applicant must satisfy the financial test and residence requirement.

2..Social Security Allowance (SSA) Scheme(Exist in HK)

This scheme is aimed to provide a more comprehensive help to 65+ people or disabled person. Also, there is no need to process the financial test for the applicant except Normal Old Age Allowance.

3. Free Wavier For Medical Services( (Exist in HK)

In order to provide essential medical services, so it is designed for low-income earners.

4. Unemployment subsidy

The government give unemployment subsidy for those people who are out of job temporary. This can help people to maintain their costs of livings during the unemployment period. This also allows them to have long time to find a better job. A lot of political parties in Hong Kong have suggested this policy.

B. Long Term Policy: The Government is trying to do better in different ways, trying to improve the living condition of the poor.

1. Raise the education level (Exist in HK)

The government helps to raise the education level of the poor people. This can help the people to have higher chance to find a better job with more income.

2. Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) (Exist in HK)

HK has MPF which can help the people to save some money for the use after their retirement.

3. Medical insurance scheme

For the old people, they may spend more expenses on medical treatments. If the government can set up a medical insurance scheme for them, this can help them to cover the medical expenses under the insurance cover. It has suggested to implement this policy before, but the reponse from the people and mass media were not really satisfactory. As a result, the suggestion was failed.

C. To protect the interest of the labour

For a capitalist society, the employer may deprived their employees from normal wages or working hours. This affect the living standard of the labour very much.

So, the government must use some ways to protect their interest.

1. Minimum wages

This can help the people to have reasonable income to improve their living standard. HKGOV has promised to form a group to look into the standard of the minimum wages.

2. Maximum working hours

This can help to create more job opportunities and get rid of being deprived. It has been still discussing in HK.

Written by: Chan Kei Fung Edward

Leung Ho Yin Joe

Acknowledgement ***

Acknowledgement
1. The GovHK - one-stop portal of the Hong Kong SAR Government
2. The Social Welfare Department
3. All of the teachers in QC (especially Mr. Chin& Mr. Wong)
4. QC Liberal Studies Department
5. All of the interviewees
6. Yahoo searcher
7. Google searcher
8. Singtao Daily
9. www.weirdasianews.com
10. us.asiancorrespondent.com
11. www.hkcss.org.hk
12. www.chinareviewnews.com
13. All of the teammates

Questionnaire Analysis(Edward) ***

Questionnaire Analysis

During the interview period, we distributed 39 questionnaires. We got back 32 questionnaires.

7 of our interviewees hold university degree. Others are secondary students. We grouped their opinions to the below report.

Q1. What is your first impact when you hear the word 'poverty'?

Most of the interviewees gave out negative feeling. They thought it is an acute problem and must be solved. They are sympathetic with the poor.

Q2. How would you define the word 'poverty'?

Most of our interviewees pointed out that 'poverty' means cannot afford the basic need of living standard. Or simply saying that the salaries of the people in a region are lower than the poverty line, in average. Their answer tend to tell us that 'poverty' means lack of basic necessities. This word may seems to be relative concept to some of our interviewees.

Q3. Do you think the policies that the HK Government uses nowadays to eliminate poverty are working or not?

9 of our interviewees think that the policies to eliminate poverty which is being used by HKGOV nowadays are working. Vice versa, the others hold the opposite perspective.

Q4. If you were Chief Executive, what would you do to fight against poverty?

Most of our interviewees gave out some useful opinions. Common examples like increasing social mobility, increasing special service to them or provide some facilities to them and let them enjoy their lives.Our interviewees would offer some vocational training for them.

Q5. Do you think CSSA is enough to the poor?

We offered 3 choices to our interviewees. (A)Enough,(B)Not enough and (C) more than enough.As it is one of the most argumentative topic in HK society, the difference between the interviewees which chose A and B is quite small. 14 of our interviewees gave out A, 'enough'. 15 of our interviewees gave out B, 'not enough'. 3 of our interviewees gave out C, 'more than enough'.

Q6. Do you think Hong Kong has a large disparity between the poor and rich?

We offered 2 choices , (A)Yes or (B)No. 3 of our interviewees chose B, No. The others chose A, Yes.

Q7. According to your answer in Q6, please state the reason.

For the interviewees who chose B in Q6, they have a thought that the poor in HK can still maintain their cost of living. For the others, they have a concept that HK is a capitalist society, so the rich can always benefit from free market policy. Also, lots of statistics like Gene Coefficient are tended to tell us that the disparity between the rich and the poor is very large in HK.

Conclusion

After this interview, we found that Hong Kong people got a sympathetic feeling to the poor, this means Hong Kongers are kind. However, it seems that they treat the word 'poverty' as an adjective more than as a noun. They put a lot of subjective motion to the question. They cannot the put the finger on the standard of the word 'poverty'. Also, we found that the policy to eliminate poverty which HKGOV are using now did not earn a much esteem to the Hong Kong people.On the other hand, we are glad to know that most of Hong Hongers are long-sighted because they don't think that the problem of the large disparity of the rich and the poor can be solved by only distributing the money to the poor. Instead of it, they would like to find out the root of the problem and solve it. And most probably it would be a long term policy like providing better education or vocational training which are associated with the financial help of CSSA.

Questionnaire Editor: Chan Kei Fung Edward

Leung Ho Yin Joe

Interviewers: Chan Kei Fung Edward

Leung Ho Yin Joe

Wang Man Yuen

Analysis: Chan Kei Fung Edward

Reminder for Stage 3

Dear teammates,
Stage 3 starts on today(1/3/2010). Alexander, Manyuen, Joe & Edward please do your work soon. The deadline will be posted on next reminder.
If you have any problem, please refer to the plan or ask Edward.
Thank you.