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Letters | Hong Kong government promises to connect with young people: budget shows its heart is not in it
- It’s clear from the fund allocation that the government has been outsourcing youth engagement to the NGO sector. This practice must stop if it genuinely wishes to address young people’s discontent
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Why you can trust SCMP
It wasn’t so long ago that a video of a 15-year-old girl being attacked by two other teenagers went viral and led to to the arrest of two teens aged 15 and 17. Last week, another case of a 13-year-old boy being attacked by at least 10 people from a teen gang came to light, and two 15-year-olds were arrested.
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It is never easy to handle teenagers. But it is necessary for the government to pay greater attention to young people, as they are the future of our society. Census data estimates show that 1.57 million people in Hong Kong were under the age of 24 at the end of 2019.
In the budget unveiled late last month by Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, an estimated HK$2.7 billion have been allocated to the Social Welfare Department for its youth programmes. Most of the money will go towards funding the subvented sector, with only about 4.5 per cent of the sum reserved for the government sector.
Why was such a tiny sum allocated to the government sector? This shows the government has no intention to reach out to Hong Kong’s young people, despite its repeated pledges to do so, especially in the wake of the citywide protests last year. Instead, it leaves the youth-related work to organisations outside the government.
Another key issue is staff strength. In 2020-2021, only 26 staff members will be allocated to look after youth needs, compared with 505 assigned to oversee services for offenders. I don’t know how many Hongkongers require such rehabilitation services, but surely the 1.57 million young people in the city need more than 26 people to provide proper care?
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