At the Crossroads

Andy Ewe

As part of the service project organized by ICS Hong Kong, the Dalat boys’ basketball team went to the Crossroads Foundation in Hong Kong to participate in a simulation during the ACSC basketball tournament.

            Once they arrived, they were greeted by Michael Williams, a volunteer at the Crossroad Foundation who ran the activity for all the basketball teams at the tournament. “In today’s simulation,” he said, “you will understand a small part of how it is to live in poverty, like millions of people in today’s world.” As he explained further, all the athletes began to realize that poverty is a much more complicated problem than they previously thought. “The problem with poverty is that in a lot of cases, simply getting more money doesn’t solve the problem,” he explained. “To fight poverty, much more than money is required. There also needs to be clean water and food, access to education, a non-corrupt government, and a lot more.”

            In the simulation, the teams were all split up into “families” of eight people. They were to become families living in the slums, fighting for survival. To survive the families needed to make a total of at least $200 a month, or in this case, 10 minutes. $120 would go towards rent that they needed to pay to their landlord, and $80 would go towards food for their family. If they didn’t get enough money, however, then they needed to go “under the bridge,” under the control of a ruthless loan shark who would not let them go until every penny was repaid, just like in reality.

The families would need to make the money just like how most people under the same circumstances did, by making paper bags out of scrap paper and glue made out of flour and water. They would then need to take their bags and sell them to the shop keepers who would pay them whatever they pleased, or rip the bags apart. The ultimate goal was to be able to send one of the family members to school to get an education, and hopefully a future, for a fee of $500.

The whole exercise took around 40 minutes, ending with three families going “under the bridge.” After the activity, the families gathered around and reflected on their experience. Titus Hwang said, “It felt like it was an endless cycle, every time we started to make enough money to pay for rent and food, the prices would go up. Every time we would be making progress, it would never be enough. We didn’t even have hope of sending one of us to school.”

 “And that is what a lot of families face,” Michael Williams said. “There are so many people under the power of poverty today, and the people who will be able to fight it look a lot like people like you—young people who will change the world.”

The simulation was a sobering experience to everyone there, a reminder to appreciate the blessings in our lives, and also a reminder to find every opportunity to help all those who are in need in the world.