What is Crossroads Foundation?

Crossroads Foundation is a Hong Kong based, non-profit organisation serving global need. We believe that, in a broken world that sees too much suffering, we should do all we can to link those who are in need with those who can provide help. So we provide an intersection, literally a crossroads, to bring both together. We offer four global crossroads services:

Global Distribution: 

Crossroads’ Global Distribution provides aid for relief and development in over 90 countries, as well as in Hong Kong, our headquarters.

Welfare: In Hong Kong, we actively support the Social Welfare Department and a wide range of NGOs in providing help to individuals and families living in vulnerable circumstances.

Development: Our humanitarian aid is targeted towards entrenched poverty. We redistribute quality goods donated by the Hong Kong community to NGOs, in over 95 countries, who have applied to us with details of their needs and development plans. Follow up and feedback provide ways for all of us to track the effectiveness of the distribution and the sustainability of its outcomes.

Relief: Crossroads’ Global Distribution also addresses major disasters. We target disaster reduction, prepositioning and response, seeking to comply with Sphere Standards in Humanitarian Response to ensure best practice.

Global X-perience: 

The old proverb says: I cannot understand a man until I have walked a mile in his shoes.

When people participate in Global X-periences, they do not watch a video or listen to a presentation about global issues. They take a few steps ‘in the shoes’ of people in need. If they are interested in poverty, for example, they experience simulated manual labour and corrupt market practice together with the battle for shelter, food, education and medical care.

We offer experiential programmes on war, HIV/AIDS, blindness, hunger, water access, inequality in trade and the complex global range of issues that hold billions in poverty. Many people find experiential learning far more powerful than the spoken or written word. Over 200,000 participants have undertaken experiential programmes, with interest in them growing. Participants include students, business teams, community groups, families and individual visitors.

Global Hand:

As well as our physical warehouse, Crossroads has a virtual one: www.globalhand.org. Anywhere in the world, real time, people with quality goods or services to donate can offer them through our Global Hand service. We will then pass on the offer to our network of NGOs in Europe, Africa, SE Asia, Central Asia and the Americas seeking the right ‘match’.

Placing goods carefully is all important to us. We are strongly committed to doing so wisely and well. Our experienced team works with both sides to ensure that donated goods are placed where they are truly needed and can make a strategic difference in others’ lives. Our network includes seasoned NGOs who specialise in humanitarian logistics.

We welcome donations large and small: by the box, the pallet or container load. NGOs are welcome to let us know if your programmes can use donated goods. We would be glad to talk and match up wherever possible!

Global Hand also built an online matching system for the United Nations to interact with the corporate sector.

You are welcome to visit us on www.globalhand.org, wherever you are in the world.

Global Handicrafts:

For many in poverty, humanitarian aid is not enough. They need a job with a reliable income. So we provide ‘business solutions’ for people in poverty: fair trade and social enterprises.

Our Global Handicrafts shop, at the Crossroads Village site, is an enchanting, multicultural marketplace of items from Hong Kong and around the world. They are purchased on a fair trade basis that sees a fair income go to artisans and producers who are living in economic need. www.globalhandicrafts.org

The Silk Road Café sells fair trade teas and coffees from around the world. It also serves snacks from local Hong Kong social enterprise businesses. All sales help provide income for people in need. It’s an oasis of refreshment and community, themed with the colours, patterns and textiles of the Silk Road. www.globalhandicrafts.org/cafe

If you would like to know more about how Crossroads was founded, please read our history here.

 

We marinade in our values: eager to walk the talk


Our Values

  • Vision: We keep our eyes on the vision to be inspired and inspirers.
  • Compassion: We care for people in need and for one another.
  • Multipliers: We can’t solve world needs alone, so we help others help others.
  • Joy: It’s a battle to fight world need, but there is joy in the trenches.
  • Humility: Ours is a constant learning curve.
  • Excellence: On a quest for the best: excellence, strategic impact, best practice.
  • Creativity: Where other solutions don’t work, we’ll think laterally and creatively.
  • Trust: We’re with Martin Luther King. ‘Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase’.
  • Service: Building a community of service that inspires a world of service.
  • Stewardship: Eager for right care of product and planet.
  • Gratitude: A deep attitude of gratitude for all who take the journey with us.
  • Transformation: We believe all can leave the world a little better than they found it.


Behind our Logos

There’s a story behind our logos.

When we first spoke to the designers, we told them we longed not only for designs which would convey professionalism, but also the story of Crossroads: our heart and vision.

A UK artist produced the concept. She did not choose a corporate style. She chose the style of art one finds among the very people whom we serve, while not tying it to any one culture or region.  It’s not exactly Chinese. It’s not exactly African. It’s not exactly European. It’s the art of grassroots communities across the world: places where people are on limited incomes and often tell their stories on their walls and in their fabrics.

She made each logo into the shape of a globe to show the world-wide reach of the work. She added a touch of whimsy to convey joy, determined that, while these showed world need, they would not be depressing.  So she portrayed a world, yes, with challenges, but one in which people are overcoming their challenges.  Finally, she used colour. Many think of poverty as dull and grey, but we find the cultures combatting it are often rich with colour and life and wanted the logos to capture that too.

We are amazed. We can use any one of them to tell the story of this work, so richly has the design captured our vision and values.

 

 

Connecting people in a world of need

  • Crossroads: connecting people in need and those who can help
  • Truck: aid/welfare distribution
  • Feet: x-periencing life in another’s shoes
  • Tents: disaster services
  • Water: environment
  • Needle/thread: fair trade
  • Soldier: victims of conflict
  • Woman with basket: poverty alleviation
  • Handshake: partnerships for change
  • Kids: a better world for tomorrow

 

Stepping into another’s shoes

  • Feet: x-periencing life in another’s shoes
  • Soldier: victims of conflict
  • Woman: poverty
  • Water: environmental need
  • Tents: disaster need
  • Raised hand: participants inspired to engage
  • Barbed wire: breaking through oppression of poverty

 

 

Partnering for change

  • Handshake: partnerships for change
  • Turbines: environmental care
  • Hammer/nails: income generation
  • Stethoscope: medical need
  • Sacks/pot/pitcher: community development
  • Graduation cap: education
  • Smart phone: digital inclusion
  • Road: global reach

 

 

Where need meets resource

  • Man with boxes: distribution partners, near and far
  • Truck: collecting donated resources
  • Boat/train: delivering to those in need
  • Lanterns: helping Hong Kong
  • Map: helping the nations
  • Horizon: ‘sky’s the limit’

 

 

 

 

Fair trade for a fairer world

  • Coins changing hands: fair trade/access to markets
  • Drums/panpipes: cultural artifacts
  • Paintbrush/bowl: arts/crafts
  • Thread: textiles
  • Coffee/coco bean: sustainable crops
  • Woman with market stall: gender empowerment

 

 

 

The Designers

When, in 1995, we realised Crossroads was starting, we thought we’d better have a logo. There was no designer involved. We just doodled on a computer and tried to pick a word shape that represented two roads crossing… (Well, you may have to squint a bit!) The result? A home-spun Crossroads logo. Over the years, as new aspects of our work emerged, different logos came with them. We were regularly advised to get our logos professionally designed, but we knew that would be expensive. With all the things in our lives that cost money, we weren’t sure we should spend our very few dollars on this.

Cost-free help came, unasked, though. A UK design firm, Thought Collective, offered to give us a professional re-design. They called on the services of a superb artist who did the basic work (story above) and sent it through for our feedback. As we responded, we learned that the artist had become ill and could no longer continue. With limited funds, the process again went into pause mode. A couple of years later, another design firm, Beck and Caul, this time from New Zealand, offered to finish off the logos, again, free of charge. This group went on to design the website you are looking at today.

Our depth of thanks to both design firms:

Thought Collective

Beck and Caul

Annual Reports

Get an insight into our work and browse through encouraging stories, successful matches, and illustrative statistics.

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