Operation Santa Claus: Hong Kong centre helps ethnic minority children with special needs get on track

Nisma, an Egyptian mother who trailed her husband to Hong Kong four years ago, felt overwhelmed when her 12-year-old son was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), muscle weakness, dyslexia and heart problems.

“We did not know what to do,” said Nisma, who asked to use pseudonyms for herself and her son “Adam”.

She said the family had relied on the public healthcare system before learning about the Zubin Mahtani Gidumal Foundation, which provided Adam with 10 free therapy sessions to help get his ADHD under control and develop his social skills.

“Before Zubin, my son wasn’t getting any help,” Nisma said. “I think the therapy is good … I see that he is becoming more well-adjusted, more aware, responsible and understanding of himself.”

Founded in 2013 to help ethnic minority children with special needs, the foundation will be able to help more people like Adam next year because its Special Educational Needs (SEN) Centre for Ethnic Minority Children is one of 15 charitable projects being funded by Operation Santa Claus (OSC) this year.

OSC is an annual fundraising drive held by the South China Morning Post and public broadcaster RTHK since 1988.

The project, funded by Morgan Stanley through OSC, will enter its third and final year in 2024. So far, it has helped 60 children.

“What we’ve observed is that the children are a lot more confident,” the foundation’s operations director Sandy Chan Wai-shan said. “After finishing 10 sessions, we move them to groups to play with other kids. They go from no eye contact to some eye contact, from screaming to much less screaming.”

Next year, 34 ethnic minority children suspected or diagnosed with special educational needs at primary schools will get 10 free therapy sessions and their families will receive guidance on an individual basis.

The sessions are to be run by speech or behavioural therapists, who speak either Hindi, Urdu or Nepali -the native language of many parents- and understand the families’ cultures.

Therapists will explain to the parents how the child is assessed and what the therapy is intended to achieve, as well as suggest how they can offer help.

“A lot of the parents yell at their children [when they do not listen], take away their toys, which will make the kids scream louder,” Chan said, adding that many special needs children did not like sudden change.

“If the parents do not know why their children are behaving the way they do, they may respond inappropriately and make the situation worse.”

According to Chan, the therapists at the foundation change the mindset of parents by helping them understand their child’s disabilities and special needs, so they can help them make progress.

Zubin Foundation children visit the M+ museum. Photo: Cindy Sui

The charity began focusing on special needs children in 2017 when they found some children went undiagnosed or had a delayed diagnosis because their teachers thought their behaviour was due to a language barrier or an adaptation issue, Chan said.

It was the only programme of its kind for ethnic minority children in Hong Kong, she said.

But one challenge the foundation faces is that some parents are in denial of their children’s condition.

Chan said there was a Nepalese mother who had been coming to the group for a parent training programme since 2018 but only revealed that she thought her son might have autism this year.

“The mother cried to us about how difficult it is to tell people about her child’s special needs,” Chan added.

Ethnic minority parents were at a disadvantage because many did not understand Chinese and had less access to official information, Chan said. Sometime, even if they knew their child had special needs, they did not know where they could find government support, she added.

“There were cases who asked us if God had cursed the family. There are misconceptions like this as well,” Chan said.

She added that there was no way they could run the three-year project without the support from OSC and Morgan Stanley, and she hoped there would be more financial help in the future so it could assist more families in need.

Since 1988, OSC has raised HK$369 million (US$47.3 million) to support the Hong Kong community through 338 charitable projects. For more information on this year’s beneficiaries, please click here.