CA Volunteer Wins Prestigious AmCham Award

“Our clients, the people who use Christian Action’s (CA) Centre for Refugees, come from all parts of the world. They have all been through terrible trauma before coming to Hong Kong but they always have smiles on their faces! I don’t think of it as work for me. It’s volunteering - I am helping, empowering and making a difference.” Rob Farrall

I am honoured to announce that our very own Rob Farrall, a volunteer with our Centre for Refugees, has won the Hong Kong American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Ira Dan Kaye Community Service Award!

The annual award recognises individuals who have performed outstanding service to the Hong Kong community on a voluntary basis. I nominated Rob for the award because the superlative ‘outstanding’ is exactly what he has been!

On August 29, 2020, CA’s Centre for Refugees (CFR) in Chungking Mansions was destroyed by a fast moving fire. The Centre was a vital safe place for refugees. They came here for food, daily necessities, education, medical referrals, counseling, and loving friendship. For many refugees and asylum seekers, we are their only family in a foreign city. And that is when I turned to Rob for help.

Here’s what I wrote about Rob in a blog post back in June last year:

‘Rob Farrall is a selfless volunteer who has freely given his time and effort to oversee the renovations. He started volunteering at CFR in 2019 and used his wealth of work experience to help the Employability Programme and with marketing. When the fire devastated CFR, Rob stepped up and offered to help with fundraising and liaising with third party architects and contractors.

He was so effective and enthusiastic that two months after the fire in October 2020, I asked Rob to manage our CFR team on a temporary basis, which he humbly accepted. His three objectives as the interim manager were to restore the CFR space, rebuild the team, and maintain programmes and services. This was a massive undertaking and I am very grateful and amazed by his willingness and ability to take on this project.’

Fast forward to 2022 and the breadth of Rob’s labour is truly outstanding. He was instrumental to the rebuilding, helped raise over HK$2M, managed operations during the renovation and pulled together a terrific team at CFR.

Rob will soon be returning to Britain and will take with him an enormous debt of gratitude from all of us at CA and the refugees themselves. Thank you Rob!

Fire! Fire!
Update Post-Fire
Refugee Renaissance for World Refugee Day

Rob (right) and his wife at the Gala
Dinner of AmCham.