|
3 Dec 2014 |
FPAHK 59th Annual General Meeting
The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (FPAHK) held its 59th Annual General Meeting yesterday. The new Council Members were elected. Prof. Daniel Shek, JP, Chairman of Family Council, was present as the Guest of Honour.
Addressing the meeting, FPAHK’s Chairperson Ms Lina Yan, JP, said that as an important part of strategies for achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, advocacy for sexual and reproductive rights was a worldwide movement. In the past year, after reviewing its mission statement, FPAHK added the word “rights” to make it “To play a leading role in family, sexual and reproductive health and rights”, demonstrating its commitment to advocating for the removal of barriers to sexual and reproductive health. FPAHK had been committed to enabling citizens to access information, education, medical and counselling services to make informed choices regarding their reproductive health, marriage and childbearing without any form of discrimination or coercion, especially when youth and marginalized groups facing social and economic barriers to service accessibility were concerned.
In her report to the meeting, Dr. Susan Fan, FPAHK’s Executive Director, covered major works in the past year and shared a series of new services and development plans.
Concerning sexuality education, to mark the World AIDS Day on 1 December, FPAHK and Red Ribbon Centre of the Department of Health organized the “Getting to Zero” World AIDS Campaign 2014, including the kick-off ceremony at the Plaza of Shatin Town Hall on 29 November, “Getting to Zero” Sexuality Education Game Mobile App launched in November and Life-Skills Based Education Workshop for lower formers in secondary schools during this school year. FPAHK also developed a series of “Life Event” Exemplars with funding from the Education Bureau. It was contracted to organize a sexuality education support scheme for schools in 2014 by the Moral Education Centre of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) in Macau. It also provided support and information for the development of a new sexual health online platform targeting young people known as “Sticky Rice Love”.
As to community service, the Women’s Club received funding from the Community Chest to run a 3-year sexual and reproductive health education programme to serve a variety of marginalized groups, including women with intellectual disabilities, those who are of South Asian ethnic minorities, drug abusers, foreign domestic workers and sex workers, etc.
On the other hand, with population issues remaining FPAHK’s concern, focus groups were conducted at the Women’s Club to collect members’ opinions for responding to the Government’s Population Policy Consultation. Dr. Fan and Prof. Paul Yip, Chairman of FPAHK’s Research Subcommittee, continued to serve on the Steering Committee on Population Policy. FPAHK also participated in the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) Workshop on the Roles of IPPF’s Member Associations in the Ageing Society held in Tokyo, Japan.
Concerning sexual and reproductive health services, with the generous donation from Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation, a second round of fee reduction offers for the“Checkup and Assessment for Mature Couples” service (CAMC) was launched to encourage long-married couples to continue attending to their health and nurturing a happy marital relationship. FPAHK and the ASIAHEP Hong Kong Limited co-organized the Hepatitis B Prevention for n-Persons Campaign to offer discounted screening and vaccination service to persons who had no neonatal vaccination, no hepatitis B virus (HBV) antibody and no HBV antigen.
Addressing the meeting, Prof. Shek said that in view of the current trends of adolescents’ increasingly liberal attitudes towards sex, pre-marital sex and early sexual debut, healthy family functioning and positive holistic development programmes for adolescents could effectively decrease their sexual risks. He added that early interventions should be provided for adolescents from non-intact and economically disadvantaged families.
In his vote of thanks, Prof. Ho Pak-chung expressed gratitude to the Government, FPAHK’s volunteers, donors and service users for their generous support and contributions.
The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong 2013-2014 Annual Report and the list of new Council members have been uploaded onto the FPAHK Website (www.famplan.org.hk) for public information.
