Hong Kong In-media (inmediahk.net), one of the city's most influential online citizen media, will be launching a new project from September to spur discussions about setting up a universal retirement protection scheme as a means to safeguard women’s social and economic rights.

The project includes a series of news features and video shorts as well as the production of an education kit that targets schools and NGOs for education purposes. The cost of the project is HK$30,000, and HER Fund needs your sponsorship to make it happen.

In fact, women are the most likely victims of a foreseeable pension crisis as society continues to age and the government is still short of coming up with adequate measures that could protect women from poverty when they retire.

"Rewards from the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) scheme hinge on one having a job and a stable income, and that poses great disadvantages to people in poverty, particularly women," says Damon Wong Chun-pong, editor and contributing reporter of In-media.

Although there are now more women in the working population, many of them – particularly those of the older generation – are still lowly paid. Also many of them work part-time and don't have an occupational pension scheme for their work.

"Hong Kong relies on a servicing industry which focus is on tourism. Although it creates many job opportunities taken by women, many of these jobs are at the low end of the jobs market," Wong adds.

Also it is common for women to quit their jobs or take long breaks in employment due to family responsibilities, for instance bringing up children or caring for the elderly. While their domestic efforts are not recognized by society, their ability to build up pensions is significantly reduced.

This video was taken by In-media and Alliance for Universal Pension.

"MPF is not retirement welfare. It is just a scheme that asks people to look after themselves," says Wong.

In fact, Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world that place the future of ageing citizens in the hands of private sector pension funds. A recent survey by Polytechnic University showed that more than 60 percent of respondents did not believe MPF could relieve their retirement worries while 40 percent even suggested cancelling it altogether.

In-media aims to interview women of different socio-economic status – from residents of elderly home, grassroots housewives, middle-class professionals, women from the post-80s generation and renowned female politicians – to bring in different perspectives to the debate.

"We want to look into the issue from different angles. When mainstream media talk about this issue they just focus on reporting the misfortunes of women. But what do women of the post-80s generation think? Also how do women with higher income think about universal retirement protection?" says Wong.

"We want to bring together more different perspectives rather than telling sad stories of women."

Also the design and management of different pension systems overseas will be discussed, compared and reported. Wong believes inmediahk.net, launched in 2004 and now has a hit rate of 10,000 per day, can be an ideal platform to stir up discussion and to create a database of in-depth reports for future references.

Over the past few years In-media's citizen reports and media activism had played a significant role in the developments of social events such as the preservation of the Star Ferry and Queen's piers to the Anti-Express Rail Link campaign.

"We don't have a very big readership but our work has influence on the mainstream media and government officials and can reach out to people who are concerned about the issue," says Wong. "These are resources we have accumulated over the years."

If you support universal pension scheme for women grant, please DONATE Now! Thank you!

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HER Fund believes in the strength of collective support by civil society. In order to achieve economic justice for women and to tackle structural poverty in Hong Kong, universal pension scheme is one of the long-term measures to ensure a decent living for women, especially to grassroots and less advantaged sector. HER Fund sees the need to mobilize resources to strengthen women's participation and voices in achieving the establishment of a universal pension scheme. As campaign-building for women rights, HER Fund has launched a fund-raising initiative for this Designated Grant from April to July, and seek your support to donate all or part of the $6,000 cash handouts from the government to this designated grant.

The donations raised are for making grants to projects that enhance women's participation and voices in advocating for a Universal Pension Scheme. We have now 3 meaningful projects awaiting for your support, they are: Women and Universal Pension Scheme Reporting and Educational Project, Homemakers Sing for Universal Pension Scheme, and New Arrival Women Strive for Universal Pension Scheme. Please click here for projects' details.

The three projects focus on building women's leadership and empowering women to participate strive for their rights for a universal pension scheme that could provide a decent retirement life for them. It also aims to bring voices of women especially grassroots homemakers' voices to be heard.

Please DONATE Now ! Thank you!

Funded by HER Fund, The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups Tsuen King Youth S.P.O.T. implemented the "Stand Up, Girls: Action research on young girls'" project. From year 2009, young girls attended a series of workshops, experiential activities and community research to reframe and assert their definition of "beauty". These young girls and social workers conducted a research on "Beauty towards the eyes of secondary school students". If you would like to get a hard copy of this research, please email us: info@herfund.org.hk, or contact HKFYG Tsuen King Youth S.P.O.T.: tk@hkfyg.org.hk.

HER Fund is now an officially recognized charity of UBS employees' donation matching program. After making a donation of not less than HK$400 to HER Fund, employee of UBS can then apply the matching donation with our receipt from the company. Every dollar donated will be doubled, as UBS will donate the same amount to us ! If you or your friends are employees of UBS, kindly support us Now and make your donation an added value investment for women and girls' rights !

Please contact Community Affairs of UBS if there is any query regarding to this program.

Thanks to UBS for their support and recognition to HER Fund's work !

Our heartfelt appreciation to 《ROF Media-PRC Magazine》in donating $5,000 to HER Fund supporting our work for women and girls' rights. 《PRC Magazine》held a discussion interview on the theme of "Women in Construction" on 26 May 2011 with leading female executives who have made great contributions to Hong Kong’s construction sector over the years. Our Executive Director, Ms. Linda To attended the cheque presentation before the discussion and shared the work of HER Fund with all the guests.

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