YLDIST strives to promote social harmony
The Non-ethnic Chinese (NEC) minorities have taken root in Yuen Long for many years, becoming important members of the local community. In implementing the Force Strategic Direction on "Engaging the Community", Yuen Long District (YLDIST) endeavours to forge mutual trust and bolster communication in a bid to further promote social harmony.
Breaking down
language barriers
Besides paying regular visits to help NEC residents adapt to the local ways of life and organising activities and contests to provide information on crime prevention, YLDIST has secured the assistance by 12 Cultural Ambassadors from NEC groups in arranging courses on NEC dialects and workshops on cultures for frontline officers. In return, police volunteers from YLDIST have organised for NEC residents courses on Chinese and visits to youth centres with a view to narrowing the differences in languages and cultures and bolstering communication.
YLDIST has enlisted the volunteer service by a Pakistani Adviser on Cultures, Shazia, for conducting a workshop on the Urdu dialect (comprising 12 hours over six weeks) for 20 frontline officers. At the same time, police volunteers have taught Cantonese to residents of African origins. Feedback from the African trainees shows the language course helps them get on with neighbours better.
NEC frontline
officers
YLDIST has two NEC frontline officers - Police Constable (PC) Abdul Faisal of PSU 4 and PC Mohammad Heina Rizwan, a new graduate from Police College and is now attached to PSU 2. Before joining the Force, Heina first came to know police work through the Yuen Long Junior Police Call and later took up the job of a YLDIST Police Community Liaison Assistant. On September 7, Heina and Abdul, together with police volunteers, visited the Muslim Club in Yuen Long and taught simple Chinese to NEC kids and introduced the work and values of the Forces in Chinese and Pakistani.
Heina's service underscores the fruitful result of promoting the engagement of NEC in the community. YLDIST will continue cementing the co-operation between NEC groups and the Force and bringing communication to a higher level.
The
Pakistani Adviser on Cultures conducts a workshop on Urdu for frontline
officers