The 1961 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Gus Borgeest

Gus BORGEEST was born in Ningpo, China, on October 1, 1909, the son of an adventuring British subject of Italian, German, English, Danish and Portuguese ancestry. Educated at St. Francis Xavier’s College, he made his home in Shanghai until 1951, excepting the years 1929 to 1931 when he was a casual laborer on a sheep raising station in Australia. He and his Chinese wife, Mona (nee Ho Pui-tsun), have three daughters—Naomi who is 13; Ruth, aged three; and seven-month-old Angela—all adopted from impoverished families they have befriended.

Mr. BORGEEST had worked for 12 years as production expediter in a British textile mill when he was interned by the Japanese, in 1943, as a prisoner of war. In camp, he chanced upon a book by Rufus Jones, the prominent American Quaker, whose lucid presentation of his Church's undogmatic discipline and brotherly "concern" for the poor and oppressed led BORGEEST, in 1946, to join the Society of Friends.

In a city swollen with families dislocated by World War II and the civil war that immediately ensued, he and his wife translated this newly adopted philosophy into action by organizing cottage industries for these refugees. As the Communists advanced toward Shanghai in 1949, Mrs. Borgeest evacuated to Hangchow where they had built a home the previous year in preparation for retirement. Here BORGEEST joined her the following summer. But pressure from the Communists compelled the BORGEEST family to join the multitude of refugees seeking haven in Hong Kong, where they arrived in August 1951 with only a few clothes and HK$2.00 (US$0.35) in their possession.

The refugee population in Hong Kong within two years had grown to 670,000, and thousands more were arriving every week. The Colony then was still rebuilding from wartime destruction—the great blocks of government housing were yet to rise and the refugees had to seek shelter in shacks they pieced together in open spaces on the hillsides. The industrial boom that since has absorbed much of this added population had barely begun and few could readily be employed.

Searching for a settlement site where refugees could be rehabilitated and given training, he was returning from a visit to a leper colony on a nearby island when he noticed a small abandoned atoll which showed signs of once having been farmed. About seven miles off Hong Kong proper, Chau Kung Island consisted of 200 rocky acres roughly square in shape with hills about 300 feet high at each corner. A preliminary survey showed the soil was poor except in the bowl-shaped center where there was a small year-round stream. To make this land yield a living would take hard work, but it suited BORGEEST for he knew the refugees would have only similar marginal land in Hong Kong when they started out on their own.

With the help of K. M. A. Barnett, District Commissioner for the New Territories, who was sympathetic to his project, BORGEEST arranged to lease the Island from the Government for HK$180 (US$34) per year. When the agreement was signed in May 1953, others were less optimistic, warning that "nothing but failure could be grown on that barren soil."

Meanwhile, he had been studying books on marginal land farming and consulting experts in the Agriculture Department. Drawing from the HK$4,000 (US$680) he had saved during two frugal years as a Government employee, he had purchased textbooks on farming and goat raising. Now he bought two tents, cots, bedding, a sack of rice, cooking utensils and some gardening tools and, on June 5, 1953, the BORGEESTS with then five-year-old Naomi and two refugee families sailed by rented sampan to the Island.

Of the first day BORGEEST recorded in his dairy: "Landed, set up our tents, outdoor kitchen, and dug a pit for our lavatory. During the day the weather was fine, but on that first night we were thoroughly baptized into our new venture . . ." The following morning this intrepid modern Robinson Crusoe renamed his new home "Sunshine Island" to augur a brighter future for the new community.

Life on the Island soon fell into a pattern of steady and hard work. BORGEEST and the two refugee farmers cleared land for a garden with their simple tools, laboring in temperatures and humidity in the high nineties. After the vegetables were in, they built simple huts with the shoulder-high sword grass. A cheerful, small Cantonese, who neither reads nor writes but speaks several Chinese dialects and English, Mrs. Borgeest cooked on an open fire on the beach and gathered sea foods from the rocks to vary their diet of rice and fish, while the small Naomi collected grass for fuel. On the 12th day, a Chinese fisherman with his wife and daughter arrived in a battered boat to try life on the Island. Otherwise, the one contact with the outside world was a fishing sampan that called twice a week with food stores and building materials.

At the end of the first month, a fair section of the tillable land had been opened, the Island boasted a few chickens, six geese and four milking goats, and two wells had been dug. Expenses were mounting and only one-fourth of the original cash capital remained in the bank. The next month, rabbits were added, more land was opened, and another two refugee families arrived. Financial collapse was averted by an interest-free loan from a friend.

A further test of the sturdy BORGEEST’s mettle and that of his small community was Typhoon Tess which struck the Colony with heavy force, severely damaging the huts and gardens. The first revenue of HK$15 (US$2.60) was earned in the fifth month from the sale of rabbits. By the end of 1953, the replanted vegetable gardens were green and the animals and fowl were thriving. But a new problem had developed; some refugee families were unsuited to the hard life on the Island and others expected a house and land without effort on their part. Financing was still inadequate, and BORGEEST took a temporary job in Hong Kong to support the struggling settlement. Helping resettle the victims of a gigantic fire in one of Kowloon's squatter areas, he lived at the YMCA and sent every cent he could to Sunshine Island where Mrs. Borgeest managed affairs. Early in 1954, he returned with a discouraging tally—his earnings had amounted to little more than one-third of the Island's expenditures.

The story of this different approach, however, had begun to spread. Several groups of social workers, newspapermen and others had come to the Island, and the authorities in Hong Kong were watching closely. Two more personal loans were negotiated, and BORGEEST was surprised to receive a number of small donations from overseas. These stiffened his determination. Keeping a meticulous record of all gifts, the list in a month would include such items as eight gallons of kerosene, 200 multivitamin tablets; a supporter in Texas sent a copy of Vegetable Growing in the Tropics. In January 1955, the Church World Service decided to select and sponsor refugee families for training at HK$160 (US$27) per month, including wages paid. Catholic Relief Services followed by sponsoring a larger number of families, and since then two other welfare agencies have joined in the effort.

With a guaranteed flow of adaptable people and an income for supporting them, BORGEEST was able to broaden the scope of his rehabilitation plans; he agreed to take not only farmers but also those who could benefit from training in simple trades. Among those who took up the offer of work on the Island were former professional men, government officials and high-ranking soldiers. Everyone was paid HK$2 (US$0.35) a day and provided food and accommodation. From the outset BORGEEST had insisted upon paying each worker a salary for he felt that only men and women earning something for their work could recover their self-respect. At the insistence of the donors. Mr. BORGEEST voted himself a salary of HK$200 (US$36) a month, which he can rarely afford to pay but usually leaves as a donation to help balance the Island's accounts.

By the end of 1956, the first group of sponsored trainees and other families chosen by Mr. BORCEEST were ready for resettlement on Government-selected land in the New Territories—a plateau known as Cheung Sheung where two acres, a cow, farm and domestic equipment, seed and fertilizer and a small cash allowance were given to each family. The Government speeded its survey of land available for resettlement, and public and private agencies have devised a resettlement program with Sunshine Island providing most training. One of the new settlers of Cheung Sheung voiced BORGEEST's faith in restoring self-respect through such efforts when he said: "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"

BORGEEST fell ill of tuberculosis in 1957. But rather than abandon his self-appointed task, he managed the Island from a chair while his wife made certain the work was done. By the end of that year, the first stone houses were completed with thatched roofs to save money, the steep valley leading up from the beach had been terraced for vegetable gardens, and bananas, pineapples and fruit trees planted in the central bowl.

Assistance has come from many sources. Students from refugee colleges formed work teams and helped dig a large fishpond, irrigation ditches and a reservoir in exchange for tuition paid by welfare agencies. Members of the Royal Air Force gave up their weekend leaves to help. Religious groups, civic organizations and individuals from England, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Borneo, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Kenya have sent contributions. CARE and other welfare agencies have provided tinned food and milk, and every family on the Island is issued a weekly ration. The Agriculture Department of the Hong Kong Government helped develop a program of marginal land farming based mainly upon hog raising, fruit orchards and forestry. The Forestry Department has planted 30 acres of trees and agreed to plant another 10 acres every year, and the Fisheries Department has given valued guidance.

Sunshine Island now is one-third self-supporting, eight years after starting with poor soil, few funds and untrained labor. And BORGEEST looks forward to 1965 when he hopes the Island will be able to pay its own expenses and support its trainees. Some 800 fruit trees are growing, cash crops are thriving, and pigs are the mainstay of the Island's economy. But most important are the 600 men, women and children who have graduated to a new life in farming or the building trades after arriving destitute on Sunshine Island.

Professor Theodore Herman of Colgate University, after visiting the Island, said: "GUS BORGEEST does not differ from most of us in believing that God calls us to a life of loving service. He does differ from most of us in having acted on that belief."

August 1961
Manila

REFERENCES:

Hall, Clarence W. "Isle of Hope in Hong Kong." Reprinted from Reader's Digest, June, 1957.

"Sunshine Island." Bulletin issued by the Information Services Dept., Hong Kong Govt. October, 1960.

Sunshine Island Reports; Second, Third and Fourth Quarters, 1960

Glendale News Press. Glendale, Calif., April 13, 1960.

Letters and reports from and interviews with persons acquainted with Gus Borgeest and "Sunshine Island", February-June, 1961. Visit to Sunshine Island, May, 1961.