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The Young Reporter is proud to announce that it was scheduled to win two Human Rights Press Awards this year before the Foreign Correspondents’ Club cancelled the awards on Monday, just days before the winners were to be announced.  Former TYR reporters and editors Sara Cheng, Simran Vaswani and Kylan Goh were to win both first and second place in the university student category, according to the award list leaked to Hong Kong Free Press. The TYR story Running District Councils in absence of colleagues arrested under NSL: work and a doubtful fate, reported by Cheng and edited by Goh, was to be the winner in the student category. The TYR article reported the difficulties faced by district councillors after colleagues were arrested under the National Security Law. “The reporter’s rigour and resolve in tackling a sensitive topic in a city with diminishing press freedoms, where so few people are actually willing to speak on these issues in the wake of the National Security Law (NSL),” said the judges’ comments. The other winner in this category was scheduled to be a report by U-Beat Magazine, published by journalism students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Another TYR story, ‘It’s either them or us’: desperate protestors take to Myanmar streets as junta uses arrests, violence to keep power, reported by Cheng and edited by Vaswani, was scheduled to win a merit prize. The judges’ comments said the report “stood out for quality and comprehensive reporting”. The documentary Pledging Allegiance reported by San Po Yan Magazine, TYR’s sister publication, the Chinese-language newspaper run by journalism students at Hong Kong Baptist University, was also scheduled to win a merit in the same category, along with reports by U-Beat Magazine and Varsity, also published by journalism students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  …

Wong Sze-kai, 30, is a frontline doctor at the Accident and Emergency Department. He feels that some of his patients are "waiting to die". “They were lying on the ground. No meals, no medicine, and no one can help them change their diapers. It’s a living hell,” he said.  As the number of older and critically ill Covid-19 patients continues to mount, Hong Kong’s public hospitals, especially their Accidents and Emergency Departments, are under intense pressure.  Hundreds of  infected elderly people in need of treatment and oxygen had no alternative but to stay in the A&E wards, in corridors, or in lobbies because there was no space in the general wards. “I've heard a few junior nurses cry, not for themselves, but because of the pitiful sight of the patients,” Wong said. As of March 27, nine of the city’s 16 public hospitals reached full occupancy, according to the Hospital Authority’s figures. Wong said the very purpose of creating the Hospital Authority 30 years ago was to tackle the same problems of overloading capacity in hospitals with long waiting times that have been faced year after year. But the problem still exists even before Covid hit the city. Sunny Ho, 22, is a nurse from the Specialist Outpatient Department at Queen Mary Hospital, one of the 10 public hospitals that have been stretched to the limits during the outbreak of the fifth wave of Covid. “The guidelines are constantly changing. The government imposed too many unnecessary preventive measures, adding to the burden on the medical staff. For example, as soon as there was a case, they immediately closed the lift and the overpass and did a lot of contact tracing,” Ho said. “But now the outbreak is a mess. There is not enough manpower and resources to follow the previous …

Carrying a blue cart of buckets and brooms, Luke Ching Chin-wai, 50, was supposed to clean the left-wing of Tai Wai MTR station. It is a two-storey building that includes four railways of the Tuen Ma and East Rail Lines, with stores on the ground floor.  In addition to 11 rubbish bins, Ching is also responsible for cleaning the advertising lightboxes, handrails and gates, as well as the train area, all within two hours.  Ching is drenched in sweat already before he’s even finished half of his duty, and he has yet to take a break.  “What a nuisance to be sweaty,” he said while cleaning the entrance gate. Cleaning workers like Ching have to maintain the hygiene in areas such as public toilets and refuse collection rooms. However, frontline cleaners are not always well equipped, especially during the pandemic. They risk their health to earn meagre salaries, and their rights and welfare are often barely protected.  But Ching is also a conceptual artist and a labour activist. He discovered the hidden welfare problems of cleaning workers working for the Mass Transit Railway after going undercover since November last year. Cleaners work under the MTR Corporation are outsourced to ISS Facilities Service Limited and Winson Cleaning Service Company Limited through tendering, according to the company’s website. Suppliers listed the business details on the tendering documents for MTRC to choose from, including the salary for the cleaners.  The number of face masks dispensed is equivalent to the number of working days, but it is far from enough. “One is needed before the break, a new one is needed after that, and should be changed after work,” explained Ching. A minimum of three face masks are needed for an eight-hour shift.  Hygiene work in an MTR station is not limited to wiping …

Hazel Chung, a university freshman who has to study at home due to the pandemic, is forced to study at the same table with her sister, who just got into secondary school. They live in a public housing flat with their mother, who works six days a week at a supermarket.  In a 15-square-metre apartment, the family uses a foldable table for dining, working, and studying. As the flat is not spacious, they will need to sit on the bunk bed for the lesson. Besides the physical environment, poor internet interrupts online learning as well. If one of the two sisters is answering questions from teachers, the other will easily be affected due to internet traffic jams, according to Chung. The intermittent internet connection often lasts for a minute and reconnects itself, repeatedly repeating every time Chung and her sister have online lessons together. “When both of us turn our cameras on, the video quality will drop significantly, making it very hard to concentrate,” said Chung. It is not just students who feel that students are not concentrating. Liz Li Tsing-wen, the head of Citizenship and Social Development in Pui Kiu College, said she noticed that students are not concentrated on online lessons. “It is very easy to see that some students are looking at the monitor but their mind has been distracted by other things at home,” said Li. “The only benefit is that I do not have to repeat ‘keep quiet’ a thousand times because they only turn on their microphones when I call their names.” Chung agrees with Li's comment and says, “even myself, as an adult and a tertiary education student, feels difficult to concentrate on online learning.” “If I have my own room and better internet, I can be more concentrated, and so does my …