Sunshine Island, Hong Kong

Friend (Quaker) Gus Borgeest, born in Ningbo in 1909, gave the island its English name and founded an audacious and successful resettlement and rehabilitation centre for Chinese refugees on Sunshine island in 1952. At the time opium addiction was endemic among many Chinese and the model farming community founded by Borgeest provided many mainland refugees and addicts in Hong Kong with a second chance. Borgeest's method was to provide land, housing, tools, seeds, training and assistance to refugees and give them the opportunity to each start a small farm on the island. The opportunity provided by Borgeest's project helped many refugee families re-establish themselves after the trauma of fleeing to Hong Kong. On a May 1956 visit to Sunshine Island one of the resettled refugees expressed the success of the project to then Hong Kong Governor Sir Alexander Grantham: "Sir, owning one's own land, managing one's own affairs, does something to a man. Such cannot be achieved, or even understood, by those who are content to let the government fill their rice bowls for them." For this work, Borgeest was awarded the 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Prize, also known colloquially as "Asia's Nobel Prize". The work of the Sunshine Island community was supported by The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Hong Kong. Sunshine Island formed the basis of later drug rehabilitation settlements still existing in Hong Kong.

After the construction of Hong Kong Disneyland, white-bellied sea eagles moved from their habitat in Pa Tau Kwu (扒頭鼓) of Lantau Island to Sunshine Island. There is also an endemic species, the Bogadek's legless lizard (Dibamus bogadeki) living on the island.

• List of islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong
• Outlying Islands

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sunshine Island (Hong Kong).

• Gus Borgeest biography on Ramon Magsaysay Awards website
• Webpage about wildlife protection (WWF HK) on Sunshine Island
• Satellite image from Google Maps