Underprivileged Hong Kong children to share stage with musical luminaries in coming benefit concert
- The event, put on by the Society for Community Organisation, is seeking to raise HK$1.2 million to fund the group’s work
- Part of that will go towards maintaining SoCO’s music and dance classes for poor Hong Kong children
Eleven-year-old Eddie Peng Bo-tao knocks on his neighbours’ door every time he prepares to practise the flute at his tiny Hong Kong home.
“If no one responds, I’ll play the flute immediately. If my neighbours are at home, I have to keep it at a very low volume,” he explained. “For low-pitch it’s OK, but high-pitched songs don’t work.”
Peng, who lives in a small tin shack with his mother in Fanling, has to speak softly because his neighbours live so close. But he enjoys playing the bamboo flute his mother bought him for HK$200 (US$26) five years ago. Now he spends an hour and a half every week travelling from his home to a music centre in Sham Shui Po.
“Other organisations usually just give a couple of opportunities to poor children, but we offer free music classes for up to five years. Best-performing kids can even get a chance to further their musical education,” SoCO deputy director Sze Lai-shan said on Saturday, the eve of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
SoCO has founded a series of musical groups since 2018 – financed by a HK$3 million annual donation from jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook – offering extracurricular activities for poor children, mainly in Sham Shui Po.
Apart from the 31-member Chinese orchestra Peng belongs to, there is also a 13-member dance troupe and a 26-member choir. The 70 children, aged five to 16, all come from families living in difficult housing situations below the poverty line.
Cheng Sum-yee, 11, lives with her parents, who work in the food and beverage industry, in a 108-sq ft subdivided flat. She cannot wait to attend dance class every week, where she gets to perform in front of a giant mirror in the studio.
