World Refugee Day 2023: Hong Kong music and dance event to be a ‘celebration of resilience’, says city’s first ethnic-minority social worker
- On June 25, Christian Action’s Centre for Refugees is celebrating the resilience of Hong Kong refugees and asylum seekers with an event at PMQ
- Jeffrey Andrews, who works with the centre, says the event will feature drum sessions, leather workshops, a fashion show and handicrafts
Hongkonger Jeffrey Andrews wears many hats. Bridge builder is one of them.
“As an ethnic minority, as a social worker, as someone working with refugees, all these roles have helped bridge a lot of the social and racial gaps that exist in Hong Kong,” says Andrews, who works with Christian Action’s Centre for Refugees, Hong Kong’s only drop-in community centre for asylum seekers and refugees. “I feel very lucky.”
A third-generation Hongkonger of Indian descent – “I grew up in the local school system and picked up Cantonese from playing football in the streets” – Andrews is the city’s first ethnic-minority social worker and a much-needed voice for refugees and asylum seekers.
There are an estimated 14,000 in the city, most of whom can’t work because Hong Kong did not sign the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Instead it has its own system to determine asylum claims, a process that can take years, even decades. For those caught in the system, life is tough.
