Life changed radically for us as soon as we heard the news that we would need to move. We can’t deny that we were pretty heartbroken, knowing the difficulty it is to re-locate an organisation of our complexity. Seven years ago, we went through the same process, checking, in great depth, every possibility of other sites we knew of in Hong Kong. At that time, we could not find anything available.

We were certainly grateful that the government had found one suggestion and quickly went to look at it, work with maps and experts, and undertake a range of different drawings about how we might use that site. With the terms and conditions surrounding it, though, and the actual size, there was no way we could fit into it. Could any of those things change, that might be different.

So, as well as the weeks we took trying to make it work, we began searching through another list of sites the government said non-profits could have access to. We realised it was the same list as we had searched seven years ago, researching it with professional counsel for months, but had found nothing. This time the last was smaller, of course, and everything viable on it was much too small, though we worked had to double check each place.

Beyond that we have been looking elsewhere in Hong Kong. We have sought counsel from people who may have different alternatives, ideas in ways we might never have thought of.

We have also been back to the government to ask if there are any further sites they might know about that aren’t known to us.

It has been very hectic over these weeks. We have worked around the clock in our ongoing search.

Sadly, though, we haven’t found the answer.