Women's emancipation in China started with the 1911 revolution, in which woman revolutionaries called for women independence and political rights.

Over 100 years on and women in Hong Kong, arguably China's most internationalized city, have yet to exercise their rights and participate on an equal footing with men in all aspects of political and social life, according to Hong Kong Women's Coalition on Equal Opportunities.

The coalition, set up in 1995, composed of 11 women's organizations, is an advocacy group dedicated to promoting women's right and monitoring the government commitment to gender equalities.

Sponsored by HER Fund, the Coalition launched a project in 2012 to empower women's political participation. The project aims to facilitate women – particularly those from marginalized or disadvantaged groups such as low-income laborers, housewives, sex workers and lesbians – to play a more active role in politics.

"We hope to first raise women's awareness of political issues, helping them to understand that these issues are closely related to their lives and some policies could have a huge impact on their livelihood," says Chan Kim-kam, the organizer of the Project.

Consulting and discussing with various women groups, the coalition drafted a policy statement encompassing a wide range of women issues in five key areas, including political developments, economy and employment, family and community, medical and health care as well as violence against women. The statement was publicized during the Legislative Council Election and the Coalition held several women’s forums to advocate politicians to adopt women-friendly social policies.

"We want to look into the formulation and content of relevant policies from a gender perspective because members of different sexes are facing up to different treatments and outcomes in a same situation," Kim-kam adds.

Highlights include advocating universal suffrage and abolishing functional constituencies, in which the number of women legislators is only 13 per cent as high-level positions in many professions and business sectors are still dominated by men. This leads to the question of whether a male-dominated legislative council could truly represent women's interest.

For instance, the voice of grassroots single mothers is rarely heard in the Legislative Council. The number of single-parent families rose more than 70 per cent between 1996 and 2006, from 42,000 to 72,000, more than two-thirds of which were headed by women.

Often these women have to rely on welfare or couldn't work full-time due to a shortage of affordable childcare services, says Hung, a mother of two children who took part in the project. "I am now on welfare allowance, but I would like to have a job to feed my children. It’s also nice to have work," she says.

Yet the services of neighborhood nannies are inflexible and spaces are limited. "I hope there will be universal suffrage so that there could be more political leaders speaking out for grassroots women," says Hung.

Hung says by taking part in the Coalition's women's leadership training workshop, which aims to equip female voters with knowledge about the political parties and the election system, she now feels more in control of the situation around her and more informed about the rights she is entitled to as a citizen in Hong Kong. "I realize that I can also fight for my own rights," she adds.

Kim-kam says the Coalition also plans to hold a roundtable discussion with women legislators. "The second step is to facilitate women from different groups to voice their opinions to legislators and the government as a means of political participation," she says.

"Of course in the end we hope there will be women from underrepresented groups to take part in the Legislative Council."

Our 'Visit to Grantees' event will be held on 21 Oct 2012 (Sun), which we hope would allow you to learn more about the work of our grantees and the projects that we funded. This time we will visit Project Be Foundation Hong Kong (Project Be), a non-profit organization that dedicated to help foreign domestic workers (FDWs) to achieving economic empowerment. Their objective is to raise FDWs' financial literacy and enable them to make informed choice in investment so that they can enjoy a well-planned future with better living.

FDWs have to leave their family and children behind and work overseas to make a living. They often face long hours of work, comparatively low pay and some with poor working condition. Many of them being the main breadwinner of the whole family in home country, fall into financial problems, like debts, and even worse, they have to financially support the home of their married children as well. At the end of the day, they are in great financial burden. HER Fund made a grant to Project Be's financial literacy training program, which is a training- the- trainer scheme. They provide training to the former graduates so that they can further conduct training to new FDWs. This scheme allows a more sustainable development of the project in a long run.

If you are interested in FDWs issue, financial literacy, and would like to meet the program participants in person, please join us!

Details
Date: 21 Oct 2012 (Sun)
Time: 2:30 – 4:30pm
Assemble time: 2:30pm
Assemble location: Main entrance of Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce, 34 Caine Road, Central, Hong Kong
Content: Getting to know Project Be's mission, vision, and work; to meet with FDWs participants of the financial literacy program.

Please contact Ms. Kwok for enquiry or registration at 2794-1100 or kwokkachai@herfund.org.hk.

With your support and performance, we had a great show in March 2012, which allowed us to raise more than HK$70,000 for making grants to 3 women's rights' projects.

We're now in full gear preparing for the "Talent Performance Show 2013". We hope to invite many more amazing performances, and we hope YOU will join us to share your talent performance and to raise funds for marginalized women !

Date: 10th March, 2013 (Sunday)
Time: 2:00pm
Venue: Y-Theatre, Youth Square, Chai Wan

More exciting news coming up ! Stay tuned !

Enquiry: 2794-1100 / info@herfund.org.hk

Share Talent is an innovative fundraising platform of HER Fund. We have many enthusiastic voluntary talent teachers to hold different interest classes, so that you can enjoy good quality classes, and the class fee will be donated to support the promotion of women's rights in Hong Kong.

Balloon Twisting Class

Chinese Health Qigong: Frolics of Five Animals (Elementary)

Chinese Brush Painting

Morning Line Dance (Elementary)

Go to www.sharetalent.hk, or like Share Talent Facebook to get more information.

Supported by Mama Cash and Central American Women’s Fund (FCAM), HER Fund's Programme Officer, Judy Kan, together with 2 young women's grantees, Bowie Lam of Teen's Key and Winnie Ma of The Association for the Advancement of Feminism, went to Nicaragua in August to meet up with women's funds and young women grantees from all over the world.

In this meeting, young women grantees learnt more about women's funds' work in supporting the young women's movement through different grantmaking strategies. They also had a chance to network with other young women grantees and to learn from their experiences. Moreover, Bowie and Winnie was able to meet directly with the staff from international women's funds, and were able to acquire more information on resource mobilization from them.

Hello! My name is Kwok Ka Chai (Ka Chai). I am a new staff of HER Fund. I live near the Lion Rock. When I am free, I like to hike, jog and joke around. When I slow down, I often choose to read books and enjoy movies. However, simply the thought of shopping tires me out.

I graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, and I am interested in gender and women's issues. Many may think that Feminism is out of date, but to me, Feminism is an ideology that encompasses multiple possibilities and one which does not take things for granted. It encourages deep introspection and evaluation of past words and values. It also is action-oriented. Its revolutionary status and pursuit of equality are everlasting.