Read More
Co-organized by the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau and the Agency for Volunteer Service, the territory-wide Hong Kong Volunteer Award was launched this year to recognize the contributions and achievements of outstanding individuals, groups, corporations and organizations from
different sectors in volunteer work.
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
The Award echoes the direction of Hong Kong government’s policy of motivating more people, particularly youths, to participate in volunteer work to care for the under-privileged, and thereby helps unite the power
of the community to build a caring and inclusive society. The Hong Kong Volunteer Award 2022 has presented over 8,000 awards on 10 December, including Outstanding Volunteer/Group, Outstanding Youth Volunteer/Group and Heroic Volunteer Award, etc.
Outstanding Youth Volunteers Founded Organizations Committed to help Hong Kongers with Emotional and Social Problems
One of the awardees of the Outstanding Youth Volunteer Award is Michael Chan, a CUHK student studying the Master of Social Science Programme in Social Work. Suffering from brain cancer and facial paralysis on the right side of his face since young, Michael was bullied by his classmates when he was a child. When studying in university, he realized that actually many students were suffering from varying degrees of
emotional problems without actively seeking help. Feeling deeply with his past experience, he founded Companion HK in 2020 in the hope of gradually changing the public’s stigmatized views on mental disorders.
Companion HK started off by interviewing people with emotional distress to share the hardships they went through. The organisation developed online and virtual Q&A sharings and one-on-one counseling. Their targets were mostly college students who were under stress and anxiety, or have suffered from loneliness during COVID times. Michael points out that to equip the volunteers with the right skills, Companion HK provides them with professional emotional education, role-playing and empathy training.
Another awardee is 13-year-old secondary school student Clarisse Poon, who set up the volunteer organization Light Their Rights after learning more about the underprivileged communities in Hong Kong during her primary schools days. “Instead of joining one-off volunteer events and seeing the participants only once, more lasting impacts can be achieved if I serve the same group of people consistently throughout the years. Age is no barrier for volunteering; it’s the heart to help that matters,” said Clarisse, the youngest amongst the awardees.
Light Their Rights actively recruits from schools to reach out to the underprivileged in society. They have organized regular volunteer activities, such as free language and debate classes, drama training and
public speaking training for over 250 deprived children to develop their skills and interests.
“Everyone has the ability to contribute to society. The sense of satisfaction is what pushes us to continue doing volunteer work,” said Michael.
Outstanding Caring School Winner Strives to Love and Serve the Community
To encourage schools to nurture students to serve the people in need and develop the value of volunteerism by organizing sustainable volunteer services and activities, the Caring School Award was also presented to recognize their contribution to society. One of the awardees of the 2022 Outstanding Caring School is Bishop Hall Jubilee School (BHJS). A teacher from BHJS, Mr Chan Yik Yeung said, “Our school motto is ‘I Am Not Born for Myself Alone’ all Jubileans are nurtured to love and serve the community, and we are all very active in volunteer work.” One of the alumni who founded “Dream Compassioneers” has also been awarded the Outstanding Youth Volunteer Group. The organization is committed to help children with needs, by providing them with the opportunity to secure daily necessities and education opportunities.
