Nine years ago Jonny Tate visited some of the poorest communities in central Cambodia with several colleagues and witnessed their lack of clean water and resources first hand. He learned that in fact 50% of Cambodian communities have no access to clean water and felt compelled to do something to help. Along with his colleagues, their wish was to develop long-term, self-sustaining benefits for people by teaching them income generating skills and further developing family and community infrastructures like clean water, education, vocational training and sustainable agriculture practices and with this, in 2012 they set up HOPE International.
Communities benefiting from HOPE International have expanded from Cambodia to also include Ethiopia, the Philippines and Burundi with one of the latest efforts being to provide an education fund for indigenous youth of the Philippines to go to university. Over the last few years, HOPE International also gave over 50 micro loans to women in the Philippines to help with small agricultural or trade business and have a 100% repayment rate for these micro loans.
During Jonny’s most recent visit to Cambodia, he had an opportunity to meet a family who had recently received a freshwater well funded by HOPE Hong Kong donors. He was amazed to see how something that we all take for granted completely changed their lives, giving the family hope for the future, and enabling them to take their first steps towards self reliance.
If you are interested in getting involved with HOPE International, they are always looking for volunteers who would like to help organise events or would like to travel to some of the areas in need to see how they can get involved.
HOPE International has an upcoming charity gala at the Conrad Hotel on 1 October to help raise money for the charity’s many initiatives (visit their Facebook page HERE). For more information about the gala or volunteering you can contact Jonny directly at jonny.tate@dc.edu.hk.