PUBLICATION

Enriching Knowledge of People in Recovery about Environmental Protection, Building an Inclusive Community

For years, New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (New Life) has not only endeavored to promote environmental protection, but also encourages people in recovery of mental illness and their family members to take part in environmental friendly activities in order to build an inclusive society. The environmental protection projects participated by New Life include, 1) Kwai Tsing Community Green Station Project launched in 2019, 2) ECF Food Sharing Project (Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan) launched in June 2015, 3) ECF Coffee Parade launched in January 2021, and 4) ECF Food Sharing Project (Wong Tai Sin) launched in April 2021.

In this issue, we are going to introduce the ECF Food Sharing Project (Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan) and ECF Food Sharing Project (Wong Tai Sin), which are both funded by Environmental Conservation Fund. New Life would like to promote the awareness of environmental protection and to alleviate the economic burden of low income individuals. Also, we aim to encourage people in recovery of mental illness and their family members to take part in environmental friendly activities in order to improve their ability of getting along with people and reintegrating into the society. They may also learn more knowledge in terms of environmental protection as preparation for becoming a crucial member of a green society in the future.

Three Steps of ECF Food Sharing Project

Step 1: Recycling and Distributing Food

The team members would collect remaining vegetables, fruits and bread from wet markets and bakeries, and also accept food donation from suppliers. After assuring those recycled food is edible, they would be distributed to the low-income residents in need. All food receivers must go through verification to ensure all foods are genuinely given to people in real need.

Step 2: Environmental Protection Education

With a series of activities such as food-cherishing talks, kitchen waste upgrading workshops and studies of specific topics, the project team hopes to raise the public awareness of food wasting and the latest updates of food crisis worldwide, as well as to share environmental-friendly ideas and ways of their implementation in daily life. Moreover, the project would be working with organizations in different areas to set up promotion booths in convention centres as well as street booths to promote the idea of reducing food wasting to broader base.

Step 3: Community Participation

Community recycling is another emphasis of our team’s work. After festival celebrations, our partnering estates, shops and malls would set up food leftovers collecting boxes to encourage Hong Kong residents to donate their festival food leftovers. On the other hand, the project would also encourage volunteers from commercial enterprises to join the food distribution activities to experience the fun of such meaningful project.

Beneficiary of the Project