With Christmas around the corner, countless families and kids are excited to celebrate the joyous occasion and holiday. The HKU LCC Rotaract Club also organized a special Christmas workshop– Words of Kindness for the children of ethnic minority and new arrival families in Hong Kong. On December 19, about 30 student volunteers from the Lap-chee College went to the Ngau Tau Kok Caritas  Community Centre to celebrate the Christmas with the children from the community.

Before the event, the LCC Rotaract Club invited the staff from the Ngau Tau Kok Caritas Community Centre to give a event briefing for all the volunteers. After the briefing, all the volunteers also prepare the gift bags for the children and do some preparation for the workshop.

The event began promptly at 10 am. Volunteers were divided up and teamed up with different children to better engage them in the activities.The first activity is “Pass the Ball”, where 10 children and 5 volunteers formed a group and passed a ball around to music. When the music stop, the person holding the ball must say a recent happy memory. This activity served as a great ice-breaker as children and volunteers alike spoke up about their happiest memories.

Then the workshop proceeded swimmingly, with games such as “Telephone” and a sing-along performance of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, where volunteers taught the song to the children and then sang together with all the children and added another happy memory to the joyous holiday spirit.

And of course, what is Christmas without gift-giving? The volunteers presented each child with a bag of DIY materials,and the children worked with the volunteers to make their very own special Christmas snow globes or wreaths.

At the end of the activity, volunteer Mona gave a few words as a closing speech,and the children were all presented with a full gift bag, which included two book coupons, a Christmas card written by volunteers, a group photo of the event to help them remember the happy occasion, two DIY gifts and a pack of stationary.

Like Mingxuan, one of the volunteers said after the event, “it’s such a great time talking and playing with the kids.” Everyone enjoyed the great memory of this special Christmas.

Text: Helen Chen, Huang Jingjing

Photography: Bai Xuedong

Typesetting : Bai Xuedong