Bethune House appeals for more donations

Filipino community organizations and individuals are being asked yet again to help fund the needs of the Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge, which provides shelter and sustenance to women migrants in distress.

Bethune House, which cares for up to 30 migrant women in its two shelters in Sheung Wan and Jordan, needs $150,000 each month to pay for rent, food and other essentials.

Its funding comes mainly from donations, and in line with this, the annual Coins for Bethune House fund-raising drive was started five years ago with help from various Filcom organizations and The SUN.

Apart from helping raise much-needed funds for Bethune House, the project aims to raise awareness among the organizations about what the shelter does to help migrant women who not only need a roof over their heads, but also support with their cases and other needs.

The current Coins for Bethune project was launched at The SUN’s 20^th anniversary celebration in Chater Garden last year, and is slated to end on Sept. 11. Previous campaigns helped raise between $20,000-$50,000 for Bethune House.

Bethune’s executive director Edwina Antonio is urging all participating individuals and groups to submit their coin donations to the Mission for Migrant Workers office at Garden Road next to the St John’s Cathedral in Central before the deadline.

Coins for Bethune 2016 launch at The SUN's anniversary in Dec

Cash donations for Bethune House are used to run the two shelters that have provided temporary refuge since 1986 to distressed migrant women workers who mostly have pending labor and criminal cases against their employers.

Others are cared for at the shelter while undergoing treatment for cancer and some other serious medical condition.

Its clients are mainly Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers who were often banished by their employers in the middle of the night penniless and with nowhere to go.

Many of them claim to be victims of collusions between their employers and their employment agencies. The agencies allegedly force the helpers to take out loans to pay for illegal placement fees, and when they protest, their employers are asked to fire them.

The employer is then given a new maid without having to pay for the agency fee again.

In its Annual Case Work Report 2015 released in March, the Mission said 97% of foreign helpers with agency-related problems were charged by recruiters more than the legally mandated fees equivalent to 10% of the first monthly salary of workers.

Last year, cases related to fee collection by recruitment agencies made up 41% of total cases handled by the Mission. - The SUN