Tin Shui Wai English Tutorial Project
Tin Shui Wai (天水圍) is a new town about an hour’s travel from Tsim Sha Tsui. Many residents there are new immigrants from China living in low cost public housing.
In April 2015, the Tin Shui Wai English Tutorial project was started by a group of WYHK 1971 alumni. The objective is to provide a free onsite tutorial service to help students in Forms 2 to 4 whose parents are receiving public assistance. They cannot afford to send their kids to private tutorial classes even if they are promising but academically behind.
A volunteer tutor meets with four students at a time for about one to two hours a week. During the meeting, they will chat in English only, thus providing an environment for the students to practice their oral English skill. There is no fixed material to be used. The tutor and students are free to bring up any topic for discussion.
The project constantly requires more tutors so more students can benefit from it. For us in Ontario, we will connect with the students through an online tool, which will be provided.
For more information, please visit the website: http://tswetp.wahyanhk1971.org
If you are interested to help, please send us your contact information and we will forward to the organizers.
Message from Daniel Mak, Project Co-ordinator ---- May 28, 1018
Dear WY alumni,
Thanks to the support of both WYPSAs and your alumni, our free TSW English tutorial project (which now covers schools in Tuen Mun, Kwai Chung and Pokfulam as well) has progressed well and increasingly gained the attention and recognition of the public as shown in a recent SCMP report in the link below:
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/education/article/ 2135484/why-do-these- hongkongers-tutor- underprivileged-students
Soon after its publication, the renowned Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund has invited us to share with it our thoughts on the use of an artificial intelligent mobile app to help students practice oral English 24/7 and the Yuk Ching Charity Trust (YCCT) has also asked us to take over its existing English program for under-privileged students in Sham Shui Po.
Coming October 2018, we shall start our 8th intake of under-privileged students and 3rd intake of ethnic minority students for our onsite tutorial program. Because of the past good performance of our alumni tutors, both the YCCT and the Principals’ Association of Kwai Chung will feed more students into our program in the coming term. As such, we shall likely serve 300+ students from over 15 schools in five districts and need more tutors from the WY community to keep up with our expansion and also to fill vacancies left behind by those serving alumni tutors who want to take a break. With significant increase in the number of schools, we also need an additional administrator to work from home for less than two hours a week on average for four months to help liaison with tutors and schools.
Since the start of our project in 2015, over 1000 under-privileged students have benefited from our service and some 60 alumni have helped out. The continuous success of our project depends on our ability to come up with sufficient volunteer tutors who are willing to sacrifice a few hours of their free time every week for ten weeks to help the needy and, at the same time, uphold the ‘Men for and with Others’ spirit they have inherited from their Jesuit education. Details of our onsite program and the role of tutors are in the link below:
http://tswetp.wahyanhk1971. org/index.php/onsite-tutorial- program/
Interested alumni, their family members and friends are welcome to help and they should fill in and return the enrollment form in the link below:
http://tswetp.wahyanhk1971. org/index.php/enrollment-form/
A briefing session for new tutors and administrator will be held on Sat. 25 Aug. 2018 from 3 to 4:30 pm at Room 126 of Law Ting Pong Building of WYK and all are welcome to attend. Past tutors will be on hand to share their experience.
If you have any questions about our project, please contact me by email (retireddanielmak@msn.com) or call/whatsapp me at 67079653. If you have any questions concerning the onsite tutorial service, please contact either Stephen Lam (WYHK’75) at 93297501 or Herbert Chan (WYHK’79) at 90816207 who lead this program. Thanks.
Cheers,