OUR VISION

SCORP is built upon the fundamental value that Hong Kong is a region where all individuals are entitled full and equal access to their human rights, where no one is disregarded and where the entire society unite to help the most vulnerable population of the region.

OUR MISSION

Our mission, first and foremost, is to encourage medical students to actively promote and protect human rights. We wish to increase medical students’ awareness of the healthcare of the region’s most vulnerable population, through introducing them to different forms of humanitarian action through projects and cooperation with external organisation. Our goal is to create activities such as but not limited to campaigns and advocacy to fulfil the visions and missions of IFMSA SCORP, and to collaborate with NMOs of the region to bring our own vision to life.

Projects

SCOPH x SCORP “Contagion: Control or Compassion?” Workshop

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a global discussion among various countries, cultures, and stakeholders regarding the most effective approach to tackle this global problem. Some countries, such as China, implemented a ‘zero tolerance’ policy and placed significant importance on reducing the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, other countries placed a greater emphasis on individual rights in their policies.

These differences in approaches across the globe inspired a collaborative workshop between SCORP and SCOPH. Each SCO took responsibility for both sides of the issue, namely the balance between public health and individual rights. SCORP focused on preparing the case material and presentation to encourage discussion among participants on the considerations of various human rights when drafting a public health policy and the potential ethical debates that arise when tackling a major outbreak.

The workshop began with a presentation by Professor Ivan Hung regarding the considerations that governments and other stakeholders must take into account when devising a policy. This provided participants with insight into how professionals approach the situation and which opinions to consider when implementing measures that affect the entire population. Later, SCORP shared the bioethics and human rights considerations that arise during a global outbreak, including freedom of movement and vaccine distribution.

During the workshop, participants tackled an outbreak scenario in groups, representing various stakeholders. This allowed participants to gain insight into how different stakeholders may respond in such a situation, encouraging them to actively evaluate public health policies from varying perspectives.

International SCORP Days Online Campaign

World Human Rights Day

International Migrants Day

International Human Solidarity Day

World Human Rights Day

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For at least the past three years, SCORP AMSAHK has annually published a series of theme posts commemorating World Human Rights Day, using this opportunity to raise awareness of key under-discussed human rights and peace issues relevant to Hong Kong and beyond. In line with our motivations this year to amplify Hong Kong’s underrepresented voices, while increasing our connectedness with our international partners, SCORP AMSAHK expanded our December social media campaign by extending it over 3 coinciding human rights days — World Human Rights Day (WHRD) (10/12), International Migrants Day (18/12) and International Human Solidarity Day (20/12).

With it, each theme post delved into a particular topic of interest. On WHRD, SCORP AMSAHK posted about racial discrimination against ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, with a particular focus on the lackings of local legislation, real-life cases cited from the SCMP, and actions to dismantle these systemic injustices. This was followed by a post on International

Migrants’ Day, which highlighted the unfair treatment and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on foreign domestic helpers, and how to support them going forward in post-pandemic recovery. Finally, on International Human Solidarity Day, our post focused on the significance of this international day, key concepts affecting ex-offenders’ rehabilitation locally, and how to support reintegration efforts at the policy, organisational and medical student/professional levels.

Each theme post was accompanied by a series of concise Instagram stories. Their purposes were two-fold — encouraging participants to reconsider possible previous misconceptions about the discussed topics through interactive myth-busting questions, and engaging participants’ interest to look at the related post for more information.

“Speak Your Truth: Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Human Rights” Online Workshop

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Currently, there is insufficient coverage of human rights and peace issues in the Asia-Pacific region, with only some serious issues being brought to light in the media. In the spirit of the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), SCORP hosted this event to support the importance of every human right and shed light on various NMO’s perspectives across the AP region. Recruitment of interested NMOs started in mid-December, where collaborators were facilitators for the mixed-NMO groups, whilst SCORP AMSAHK created the materials used, hosted the event and managed the logistics.

On Day 1 of the workshop, participants had icebreaking before each collaborating NMO shared their NMO’s culture and the main human rights issues faced. This facilitated intercultural exchange and introduced intersectional issues across AP. In mixed-NMO groups, specifically designed to fairly represent all participating NMOs,

participants chose a UDHR article and a related topic to present on. They had a week to complete their slides, covering each NMO’s perspectives, links to healthcare, youth advocacy and IFMSA policies. After presentations on Day 2, participants and observers formed smaller groups to consider the discussion questions set and gain insight into others’ opinions. This unique event format aimed to enable participants to go beyond their comfort zones to work with other NMO peers and to rapidly learn about a wide range of human rights issues by consolidating and applying knowledge learnt through appraising their own and others’ perspectives.

Disabilities Experience Day

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Despite Hong Kong’s bustling outlook, disabled Hongkongers remain silent sufferers who are disproportionately overlooked in society. As of 2020, 7.1% of Hong Kong’s population were considered to have one or more disabilities — the most common 3 being mobility, vision and hearing impairments. However, a profound gap in local medical education on disabled persons remains a pertinent problem, often rendering healthcare providers’ skills, facilities, and attitudes inadequate and inaccurate.

Disabilities Experience Day 2023 focused on spotlighting the most common disabilities amongst Hongkongers through guest speaker sharings in the morning, alongside a hands-on wheelchair experience in the afternoon. This year we invited Dr Jennifer Lui, one of Hong Kong’s only wheelchair doctors to share her experiences when practicing as a physically disabled person. Dr Lui is a part of the Hong Kong Federation of Handicapped Youth, hence participants also had

the opportunity to attend a workshop to simulate physical disabilities, including the use of prosthetics arms and legs. We also organised our own workshop about speech impairment, with interactive activities including communication games using speech assistance. Similar to previous editions, participants then embarked on routes across Hong Kong while wheelchair-bound. This year, we expanded our routes to Kowloon, including tours of Kowloon Park and Victoria Harbour. Participants completed different tasks and experienced common daily activities through the lens of a physically disabled person, to truly increase their empathy and understanding of a disabled Hongkonger’s experience.

Unravelling the Roots: A Dialogue on Grassroots Communities

Health is a human right for all, but unfortunately not achieved by all. Grassroots of Hong Kong struggle to maintain even a basic level of health, e.g. low-income families, ethnic minorities, and refugees. To better equip medical students with relevant knowledge on the importance of providing accessible community healthcare services to grassroots families in Hong Kong, SCORP organised “Unravelling the Roots: A Dialogue on Grassroots Communities”, an online and physical workshop that aimed to bring awareness to how society and the health system had supported, as well as failed, the city's most vulnerable population in regards to health support.

We began the project with an online sharing, which included a presentation made by AMSAHK SCORP and an insightful presentation from Dr Fan Ning, the founder of Health In Action, on the current primary health care system in Hong Kong and the system's insufficiencies in managing and providing optimal care to all. We

followed up Dr Fan’s presentation with our own sharing, which included educating participants on the inequalities on a grassroots level, more specifically the manifestations of health inequalities. In conjunction with raising awareness for health inequalities, we also brought up one of the main causes of such inequalities – poor health literacy at a grassroots level.

In the physical workshop held at HIA's community health centre and pharmacy in Kwai Chung, participants observed a diabetes talk and got to try out the centre's health assessment equipment. After that, we went to the Kwai Chung community pharmacy, where we learnt about its function in medication dispensing and consultation service, minor ailment management service, medication management service, telepharmacy and public education. Participants got a first-hand understanding of the objective of the community centre and pharmacy, which is to enhance the ability of the general population in self-managing disease.

Disaster Medicine Workshop

With an increasing number of both natural and man-made disasters, increasing social, environmental and technological development can give rise to complicated disaster environments. If defences fail, this can greatly impact social and economic development, and subsequently quality of life. To introduce Hong Kong’s future medical practitioners to the necessary knowledge and skills to combat a disaster, SCORP organised our Disaster Medicine Workshop, an annual two-day event. This workshop included a series of interactive sessions outlining the key concepts and theories of disaster medicine such as triage, pre-hospital management, hospital management, disaster risk reduction and international humanitarian law. Our officers and guest speaker Kelvin Cheung (BASc (Global Health and Development), Counselling, HKU Year 4) introduced mental health and psychosocial support in disasters. We also invited Mr. Vincent Pau, a nurse and field worker from Médecins Sans Frontières to share his experiences working as a nurse during various humanitarian field assignments internationally, especially

in the aftermath of natural disasters. Through his talk, we hope to inspire our participants to consider the opportunities available outside the standard medical training and career path. The highlight of the event was a table-top disaster simulation, which allowed participants to culminate the knowledge learnt during the workshop and put it into practice. The workshop allowed the participants to learn how to respond in times of disaster and adapt their management practices to minimise a disaster’s traumatic impact on society.