Crossroads Foundation

Every year, private donors of all types donate goods of all types to Crossroads. Crossroads has received goods from manufacturers, hotels, educational institutions, hospitals, businesses, and individuals alike. The items Crossroads receives are designated to one of their fourteen processing departments where the items are examined and recorded. Volunteers inspect all donated items to ensure they meet high quality standards for distribution. These goods are then distributed to people in need through the Global Distribution department. About 60% of the donated goods crossroads receives go back to the people of Hong Kong, and about 40% are distributed around the world. Locally, goods are distributed by referrals from the Social Welfare Department or through registered NGOs.[11] Crossroads has distributed, “building supplies, vehicles, computers, medical provision, household furniture, office furniture, educational furniture and equipment, bedding and textile supplies, electrical items, household goods, clothing, stationery, bicycles, books and educational toys.” Staff at Crossroads describe Global Distribution as, “a crossroads between need and resource.” [12] Crossroads has distributed goods to over 90 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, South and Central America, and the Middle East. Transport companies will often provide transportation for discounted rates, and Crossroads fundraises to meet these costs in order to remove the burden from the recipients.

Global Hand is a website that matches entities that wish to donate with those in need. It is described as, “a non-profit brokerage facilitating public/private partnership.” [13] Most notably, Global Hand has assisted and advanced the distribution of aid during the Ebola Crisis and the Syrian refugee crisis,[14][15] and has provided services in Rwanda, Sudan, and Romania.[16] Global Hand works with the United Nations to facilitate interaction between companies and UN projects.[17][18]

Crossroads provides fair trade goods at their Global Handicrafts Marketplace and their fair trade cafe. By supplying fair trade goods, Global Handicrafts facilitates not only job growth in developing communities worldwide, but also provides sanitary, healthy, and humane working conditions for those who sell their products.[19] Global Handicrafts trades products from Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, Central Asia and the Middle East.

With the motto, “I can't understand a man unless I walk a mile in his shoes”, Crossroads has developed a series of simulations that allow participants to step into the shoes of suffering people. In 2005, Crossroads invited local leaders to spend 24 hours living in simulated slums in a simulation Crossroads dubbed “Slum Survivor”. Each participant was given a pile of debris and asked to build ‘homes’ that they would use for the entirety of the experience. “They ate ‘survival’ food on banana leaves, or from garbage bags. They fought the wiles of loan sharks. They met the dog eat dog struggles of the market place. We called this Slum Survivor. Because they survived, the participants earned sponsorship from those who supported them.” [20]

After “Slum Survivor”, Crossroads received numerous requests from corporations, consulates, universities and school groups asking for similar simulations. Global X-Periance has simulated poverty, blindness, HIV/Aids, and a day in the life of a refugee for over 100,000 participants in a dozen different countries.[21]