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Olympic Torchbearer Nomination Campaign
Three Coca-Cola Olympic Torchbearers in the Hong Kong section of the Olympic Torch Relay to Beijing will be selected through public nomination and selection. The Federation will be a partner of the campaign and help in recruitment and selection procedures, at the invitation of Coca-Cola China Ltd. Public nomination for these Coca-Cola Torchbearers is open for participants aged 14 or above. Deadline for enrollment: 12 August. More details at www.u21.org.hk/u21
_2006/promotion/olympic/
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Annual Charity Dinner:
Thanks to Sponsors
The Federation’s annual fundraising charity dinner will be on 13 October at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Proceeds raised will support our services for the underprivileged. A big thank you goes to all lucky draw prize sponsors, Mission Hills Golf Club, Continental Diamond, Top Secrets Co. Ltd, Four Seas Mercantile Ltd, King & Co. (Bulgari Asia Pacific Ltd), Milus (Far East) Ltd, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hai Sang Hong Marine Foodstuffs Ltd, Sa Sa International Holdings Ltd and Hotel Nikko Hongkong. Many thanks indeed also go to Cartier for their generous sponsorship and to Altaya Wines Ltd for their offer to supply wines for drinking during the dinner. Please join us with a donation in cash or in kind of HK$60,000 for a table with 12 diners. Click here to reply. Further information from Bonnie Cheng in the Partnership Office of the Federation, tel 2123 9598. |
Apple Daily Charitable Foundation Sponsorship for young drug abusers
With funding from the Apple Daily Charitable Foundation, the Federation's Sai Kung and Wong Tai Sin Outreaching Social Work Team are organizing a programme for young drug abusers from late August 2007 to June 2008. Participants will take part in drug abuse prevention seminars, workshops on parent-child relationships and work/study preparation and techniques. We hope this 10-month programme will help them and their parents to recognize the serious consequences of drug addiction, showing them how to be positive and learn about career opportunities. We want to equip them with the necessary life skills for integration with the community.
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Hong Kong Young Ambassador Scheme 2007
Building on past experience, the Federation and the Tourism Commission are again co-organizing the Hong Kong Young Ambassador Scheme to spread the message of Hong Kong's hospitality. The Federation is very grateful to Power Logistics for generously sponsoring printing costs, enabling us to run a widespread publicity campaign. As in previous years, the programme will include training for 230 young people as representatives of Hong Kong locally and overseas. It encourages them to promote the city's rich traditions, heritage and tourist attractions. Those studying in Hong Kong will then be stationed around the territory to greet tourists and both local and overseas Hong Kong students will organize promotional activities during the coming year. For more information, please click: www.yas.org.hk/
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Project for young night drifters in Tseung Kwan O District
Sponsored by the Sai Kung District Council, the Federation is organizing the sixth Night Market for young night drifters in Tseung Kwan O together with the local offices of the Social Welfare Department and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. On alternate Friday nights, from May 2007 to early 2008 between 11.30pm and 1.30am, outreach social workers invite young night drifters under 24 to join sport and cultural activities such as basketball, badminton, squash, volleyball and hip-hop dancing. The aim is to provide them with alternatives to hanging around late at night thus helping them to resist negative influences. They are also offered counselling and guidance to help them build a more positive attitude to the work and study opportunities open to them.
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Joint Project with the Police
The HKFYG Sai Kung and Wong Tai Sin Outreaching Social Work Team is co-organizing a contemporary dance class with the Hong Kong Police Breakthrough Project from the end of July till early October. Delinquent teenage girls will get dance training and have the opportunity to demonstrate their talent in public at local events and performances. We hope the programme will help such youngsters become more self-confident and integrated. |
Teen Action 2007
Sponsored by the Citi Success Fund, the Federation's Youth Support Scheme and the Hong Kong Police Castle Peak and Tuen Mun Police Station will co-organize this project again from October till January next year. Teenagers aged between 13 and 16 who have been cautioned by the police take part with policemen who volunteer as leaders for fitness training and adventure activities including hiking expeditions, night-time exploration, command tasks and field cooking. The aim of the project is to help teenagers improve their communication skills and physical fitness as well as developing team spirit. |
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| Form Five Broadband Hotline for HKCEE candidates and parents |
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The HKCEE results come out next week and this is a major turning point for thousands of Hong Kong students. It means stress and anxiety for them and their parents so Form Five Broadband hotline counsellors stand by day and night for calls on 27771112. The service is run by HKFYG's Youthline and phone lines, email inboxes, icq and chatrooms come alive with questions and answers as professional staff deal with uncertainties about career paths and planning options for future studies. |
Finding the right school is one of the most important steps in the lives of Hong Kong students and there are now lots of alternatives, including vocational training and job placement schemes. We help parents find relevant information to make good choices. We help students choose the right courses for their abilities and we help those about to join the workforce set out on a track suitable for their skills and aptitudes. These are complicated issues and we try to provide guidance to the many options now open.
For more information about the counselling service contact Siu Man, tel 27883433 or 27883444, email yc@hkfyg.org.hk. |
| Feature Story |
HKCEE results: helping parents and students take the right steps for the future
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Virtually all Hong Kong parents and students share worries about education. These reach a peak as the release of HKCEE exam results approaches. This is very understandable since there are places in Form 6 at public sector schools for only about 30% of the age cohort. We try to help parents and their children develop the right attitude to planning and decision making, converting anxiety into active, constructive research which means they discover all the options open to them.
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The Form Five Broadband hotline is one avenue that parents can choose to find help. Another was a symposium organized last week with the Vocational Training Council. It featured seminars and workshops on planning for Form 5 students and their parents as well as sessions on improving family communications for difficult subjects like the choice of the right career path.
I seldom talk directly to my daughter about the exams, said Mrs Lau. I don't know enough about the system and I don't want her to feel pressured. There are other ways in which I can help her though.
Whether or not to discuss the possibilities that exam results bring is a difficult question. Many students prefer to talk it over with fellow students rather than parents and Mrs Lau's daughter, Vinci who is at the Tack Ching Girls' Secondary School, is one of them:
My classmates are going through the same thing as me so when we hang out together and relax with some good music we chat and try to reassure each other.
What Mrs Lau did was find out about Vinci's options:
I went to the symposium last week and found out about the IVE business courses in case Vinci doesn't get a place in Form 6. She wants to go on and major in music but I think she should get some vocational training first and I learned at the symposium how to select the right course for her. I would advise all other parents to do some research like this and never put pressure on to succeed. Then you find out that there are always alternatives in case you don't have academic success. You just have to plan well ahead. |
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Vinci really appreciated her efforts:
I was rather worried because I don't think I'll do well in English or Maths but I love music. My mum made me feel so much better because she collected all the relevant information about alternatives.
Max Yu, a 16 year-old science student at the Buddhist Tai Hung College, wants to go into journalism. He was feeling doubtful about his results too when we talked to him:
I haven't slept well for months because I study such long hours and worry too much about the exams but I get a lot of support and encouragement from my parents and friends. I'm very lucky in that respect.
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Mrs Yu, Max's mother, was also concerned about the results but she was determined not to show it by pressuring Max:
He got very depressed last year when he got poor grades in the mock exams and became quite withdrawn and ill tempered. His father and I just try to be emotionally supportive and make sure he eats well. If in the end, he can't go on at his present school we will find the money to send him to study in Australia or Canada. The most important thing is that he feels he has freedom of choice and that he knows we will stand by him. |
Max is one of the lucky few. The vast majority of Hong Kong students don't have his freedom of choice. Nevertheless, the possibilities are legion and the HKFYG hotline counsellors know about them. There are many imaginative alternatives open, regardless of educational attainment and parents who come to HKFYG workshops ahead of the release of results will always be able to arm themselves with information. When the results come out the hotlines will be ready for callers. For those with open minds, the world will always be their oyster.
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| Upcoming events |
Hong Kong Young Ambassadors Appointment and Awards Ceremony |
Date: Friday 10 August 2007
Time: 3:30pm
Venue: Room 301, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
Officiating Guests: Ms Au King-chi, Commissioner for Tourism
Officiating Guests: Dr Rosanna Wong, DBE, JP, Executive Director, HKFYG
230 Young Ambassadors will pledge to promote Hong Kong's fine reputation as a holiday destination and awards will be made to last year's ambassadors for their efforts. |
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| Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum |
Date: Thursday 23 August 2007
Time: 3:30pm
Venue: Room 301, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
Theme: Finding the Footprints of the Dragon: Chinese Culture and the Life of Chinese People
Guest speaker: Professor David Lung, SBS, MBE, JP
Guest speaker: Department of Architecture, University of Hong Kong |
| Facts & Figures |
| Can parents be too protective? |
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A recent survey of young people in Hong Kong, Beijing and Guangzhou* showed that out of a total of 3,000 polled, Hong Kong youngsters had much less confidence in their capacity to bounce back after a setback than their counterparts on the mainland. Under 50% of the Hong Kong youth polled said they were determined to overcome difficulties compared to over 70% in each of the other two cities. |
Analysis of a 'worry index'**, devised by another Hong Kong social service organization and based on a survey of 1,366 parents and 2,687 primary schoolchildren, confirmed these findings. Social workers involved in the research said that overprotective parents were likely to affect their children's ability to deal with failure.
Over 40% of the parents in the second survey had serious worries about their children's progress at school. Nearly 50% were concerned about the chances of their making unsuitable friends and over 30% worried about them getting into bad habits. On the other hand, 15% of the children interviewed were worried about not getting enough sleep - a very different kind of problem and a common enough one for Hong Kong students.
* Boys & Girls Clubs Association of HK survey, reported in South China Morning Post 7 July 2007
** Caritas Youth and Community Service, reported in South China Morning Post 9 |
| New Publication |
Felix Wong Awards: 19 lessons about Life (生命19課)
This commemorative volume of 19 stories from last year's award winners has just been published. As in previous years, the authors all come from underprivileged families or have suffered from a serious illness or a family tragedy. Copies of the book are available for sale for HK$40 from the School Social Work Unit, tel 23950161. |
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The
Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups provides services
and facilities for the intellectual, physical, emotional
and social development of young people in the hope
that they will lead full and committed lives as responsible,
contributing citizens. It has ten core services focusing
on youth employment, volunteering, youth-at-risk,
counselling, education, parenting, leisure, culture
and sports, youth exchange, leadership training and
e-services.
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