Family Council Champions Family Care Fostering Harmony for a Peaceful Society

Family is the cornerstone of society. Family harmony not only fosters healthy growth of younger generations but also serves as an essential foundation for building a harmonious society. The Hong Kong SAR Government thus established in 2007 the Family Council, a cross-sector and cross-bureau platform, to advise the Government on family-related policies and promote a culture of loving families in the community.

Chairperson of the Family Council, Ms Melissa Kaye Pang

Diverse Activities Promoting Core Family Values

The Family Council upholds "Love and Care", "Respect and Responsibility" as well as "Communication and Harmony" as family core values. As shared by its Chairperson Melissa Pang, "Through organising various publicity activities, the Council advocates the importance of family and promotes family core values in the community. The Council also collaborates with different stakeholders to foster a culture of loving families. An example is running the annual Happy Family Campaign funding scheme to provide funding for youth uniformed groups to organise activities such as carnivals, parent-child sports days, adventure training camps and handicraft classes, with the aim of encouraging family participation and strengthening family bonding. In 2024-25, nine youth uniformed groups have been funded for hosting 84 activities, with an estimated attendance of over 36 000.”

Ms Melissa Kaye Pang states that the Family Council actively spreads
the message of loving families through various channels,
including the distribution of souvenirs.

Promoting Traditional Virtues and Passing on Family Values across Generations

The Family Council sets different themes for its publicity campaign each year, and the theme for 2024-25 is "Family Values: Our Cherished Legacy". Ms Pang points out, "Since 2022, our country has implemented the Family Education Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China to guide society in focusing on family, family education, and family values. To tie in with the country's efforts in promoting the Chinese tradition of advocating family education, the Council has adopted the theme 'Family Values: Our Cherished Legacy' to organise a variety of promotion activities. They serve to pass on to our community, in particular the younger generations, traditional family values and virtues such as filial piety, respect for the old and care for the young, marital harmony, as well as integrity and courtesy."

Under the theme "Family Values: Our Cherished Legacy", the Family Council has organised an array of activities, including a short video competition for senior primary and junior secondary students to spread among young people the message of caring the family, and the production of family education videos to promote traditional Chinese virtues. Besides, the Council has collaborated with the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) to launch a series of promotional programmes, including voice acting workshops for primary and secondary students, a new series of children’s radio drama featuring “The But’s Family”, and also thematic radio programmes. To celebrate the International Day of Families, the Council has incorporated relevant content into a television programme and produced feature radio programmes, in which the audience and guest artists share not only family recipes but also family stories and values.

The Family Council organises various promotional activities each year to promote core family values to the public.
(Photo credit: Family Council Website)

Promoting Family-Friendly Employment Practices

By means of various publicity activities, the Council promotes and encourages employers to adopt more diverse and flexible family-friendly employment practices (FFEPs), such as flexible working hours, work-from-home arrangements, shift scheduling and family leave. These practices foster a pro-family working environment and help employees achieve work and family life balance. Ms Pang explains, "FFEPs help relieve the pressure on employees to balance between work and family commitments, and in turn enhance not only their sense of belonging but also corporate image. All these are conducive to attracting and retaining talents as well as increasing operational efficiency. In the long run, the well-being of our economy, society and people may also be largely benefited."

In 2023-24, the Council produced a series of promotional videos titled "Family-Friendly Workplace", featuring the FFEPs adopted by six local companies with the sharing of both the management and the staff. Practices such as granting carer leave and additional maternity or paternity leave, as well as allowing employees to bring children or pets to work, have been well-received by the employees concerned. Given the positive feedback to the promotional videos, a new series has been launched in 2024-25 with the first episode released in July this year. The Council has also worked with the RTHK to produce a series of radio interviews with employers implementing various FFEPs. The first episode of the series was broadcasted in the radio programme “Morning Suite” in RTHK Radio 2 in July 2024 and uploaded onto the website jointly launched by the Council and RTHK for replay.

"Family-Friendly Workplace" promotional video
(Photo credit: Family Council Website)

New Funding Scheme to Promote Family Education

Ms Pang stresses that the Council will continue to promote family education and a culture of loving families through various activities and programmes. Among them is a new five-year Funding Scheme on the Promotion of Family Education to be launched in October this year, with an annual total funding of $8 million to subsidise non-profit-making community projects on family education. The Funding Scheme will support projects on education for new parents, parent-child education, maintenance of family relationship, inheritance of family values and traditional virtues, and other marriage-related subjects, etc. to meet the needs of different families. The Council looks forward to working with different sectors to promote the healthy development of families and foster a pro-family environment in the community.