Our heritage goes back to 1950 when a 'Hong Kong Branch' of the British 'Save the Children Fund' was established here. The focus of the charity's work at that time was to help children in the refugee camps in Hong Kong.
Later, as 1997 and the resumption of Hong Kong's sovereignty by the Mainland approached, this body was discontinued and an autonomous, locally-registered Hong Kong charity, 'Save the Children Hong Kong', was formed in its place. As the Vietnamese camps closed, the charity's work turned towards Hong Kong's own underprivileged children, and those in some of the remote parts of the Mainland.
In 2001 this organization became a member of the International Save the Children Alliance, the global network of 27 independent organizations in 110 countries. Its association with the Alliance was successful and effective. In May 2006, in response to a new strategy adopted by the Alliance that would gradually bring its local and national bodies together under a global structure, with global programmes and with global fundraising, the Hong Kong organization, which wished to remain ‘local’, became totally independent and adopted a new name: Changing Young Lives Foundation.
Our decision to leave the Alliance in order to remain ‘local’ reflects our maturity as a Hong Kong charity and our wish to focus on our own Hong Kong and Mainland programmes more particularly described in this website.
The name change and local independence have the blessing of our Patron, The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, our Council, and the Alliance. We continue to run our successful programmes for underprivileged children as in the past, and they continue to be operated by the same secretariat and staff members under the same Charity Registration Certificate Number 91/4624.
Changing Young Lives Foundation is committed to identifying underprivileged youngsters and changing young lives for the better both in Hong Kong and in the Mainland.
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