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The Social Welfare Department (SWD) today (December 14) announced to subvented non-governmental organisations (NGOs) the launch of Phase 2 of the Social Welfare Development Fund (SWDF) and will invite them to submit their applications in January 2013.
Giving the opening remarks at a briefing session for representative of the subvented NGOs, the Director of Social Welfare, Mr Patrick Nip, said, "Under Phase 1 of the SWDF, a total of $262.9 million was endorsed for 150 NGOs to implement their projects. Among the approved funds, 55 per cent was for training and professional development programmes, 34 per cent was for business system upgrading projects including information technology (IT) projects, and 11 per cent was for studies to enhance service delivery. As at March 31, 2011, some 11,000 persons benefited from the training and professional development programmes."
He added, "To improve the SWDF, SWD staff conducted a review of Phase 1 by collecting views from NGOs through visits and meetings. The feedback of NGOs on Phase 1 was generally positive. NGOs contributed a number of valuable suggestions for the implementation of Phase 2. As a result, the SWD has, for Phase 2, come up with a number of enhancement measures to the SWDF to allow NGOs more flexibility in using the funding approved to meet their organisational needs."
The SWDF is being implemented in three phases for a total of nine years from 2010-11 to 2018-19. Phase 2 will last from 2013-14 to 2015-16. All the 171 NGOs subvented by the SWD are eligible to apply for the SWDF to carry out projects under any or all of the following scopes:
(a) training and professional development for NGO board members, management and staff (not limited to social workers), covering also the cost of workers to relieve staff who go on training;
(b) business system upgrading for NGOs (both IT and non-IT projects), eg IT infrastructure, system design and initiatives to enhance NGOs' management capacity or to facilitate their re-engineering; and
(c) studies aiming at enhancing NGOs' service delivery.
In the briefing session, representatives from two NGOs (New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association and Helping Hand) shared their experience in conducting business system upgrading projects in Phase 1. The experience sharing is a significant milestone to foster the culture of experience and wisdom sharing among NGOs with a view to inspiring them in planning more innovative projects under the SWDF.
Ends/Friday, December 14, 2012
Issued at HKT 17:31
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