Three women were posing for a photo.
There was Dr Laura Yeung Yuen Chi-kwan, chairwoman of the Intellectually Disabled Education and Advocacy League (Ideal); Mei Ling Fok, founder of the Families of SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) Charitable Trust; and Mamre Lilian Yeh, executive secretary of Operation Dawn.
The women each head a Hong Kong charity selected as Operation Santa Claus 2009 beneficiaries.
As the photographer snapped away, the trio laughed when they were told they looked like the new Charlie's Angels. Fok later quipped: 'Move over Charlie's Angels. Here come Charity's Angels.'
Charity's Angels - there was no argument there: the name was perfect. The women, along with all the founders, heads and staff of all Operation Santa Claus beneficiaries, have earned that title.
They are Charity's Angels, people who want to help or care for others, people who have sacrificed time, friendship and riches to assist those in need.
Yeung's 35-year-old daughter was born with Down's syndrome. In 1989, Yeung helped form Ideal with other parents. Now the former social worker spends her free time advocating the needs of the city's intellectually disabled so they can be more independent and have more training. 'I live not just for myself but for all people with intellectual disabilities and their parents,' Yeung said. 'I feel happy with what I'm doing.
'I'm getting old now, and when I think of my daughter she is also getting old now because they [people with Down's syndrome] usually age early,' Yeung said. 'Many of them - starting at the age of 40 - they start to age. I'm working hard on this area.'
Fok told Yeh and Yeung that sometimes she's asked if SMA is a milk powder.
Her reply: 'No, it's much more serious than milk powder.'
Fok's 18-year-old son was diagnosed as a baby with SMA, a disease in which the nerves that drive muscles degenerate. She gave up her career as a lawyer in an international law firm to focus on her boy, and then started a charitable trust, more than a decade ago, to call attention to the needs of children and adults living with SMA.
'I went into the [intensive-care unit] and saw my son really trying to breathe by himself, and smiling at the nurses,' she said. 'He was really a little fighter ... I couldn't give up.
'I told myself: if my son survives ... I should come out and help people and tell people how to do it, so they do not need to go through what I went through, and need not grope in the dark, and need not make the mistakes I made.'
Yeh listened to Yeung and Fok, and was touched by their courage.
'I can see a mother can do almost anything for their children,' she said.
Yeh's story also involves her family. Her father started Operation Dawn more than 40 years ago. Four years ago, she left her home and business in America to improve Operation Dawn, a drug rehabilitation centre with three sites in Hong Kong.
'I was thinking I would never come back to Hong Kong,' Yeh said. 'I even bought two cemetery plots for my husband and myself.'
But after a long process and relying on her religious faith, she and her husband decided it was time to leave the US and come home. Her father could not manage his organisation any more, a brother passed away and another sibling moved back to Britain. Enrolment had fallen. Operation Dawn was struggling. 'I did give up a lot of what I established in the US, but I found out I was needed here to run this organisation,' Yeh said.
Angels of charity can be found throughout Hong Kong. Other Operation Santa Claus beneficiaries this year include the Baptist Oi Kwan Social Service, the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation, Suicide Prevention Services, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Elderly Home, the global conservation body WWF, Youth Arts Foundation, Little Life Warrior Society, Autism Partnership Foundation, The Nesbitt Centre and Po Leung Kuk.
Yeung said: 'They are all Charity's Angels.'
You can help make a difference
How you can give
Donate online by credit card at osc.scmp.com
Donations can be made by ATM or at any HSBC branches: a/c number 502-676299-001 for SCMP CHARITIES LTD - OPERATION SANTA CLAUS
You can donate by cheque, payable to 'SCMP CHARITIES LTD - OPERATION SANTA CLAUS' and mailed to:
Operation Santa Claus, Morning Post Centre,
22 Dai Fat Street,
Tai Po Industrial Estate, New Territories,
Hong Kong.
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