Suicides hit home for mental health chief

Many students who committed suicide are not from high-risk groups, executive councilor Lam Ching-choi said, calling on schools to expand support networks.

Lam, who became chairman of the Advisory Committee on Mental Health on December 1, said yesterday many suicides were prompted by the inability to adapt to school life.

According to the Education Bureau, there were 31 reports of suspected suicides in primary and secondary schools in the first 11 months of this year.

"Whenever mental health issues arise, people usually link them to the medical sector, but I think we cannot rely on the medical sector alone to solve the problem. Collaboration between different sectors is needed," Lam said.

Extracurricular activities are, for him, a good opportunity for teachers to get to know students, although fewer students are participating in them since the pandemic ended.

Lam said it was necessary to think about how to encourage more students to take part in such activities. Parents particularly should encourage children to join extracurricular activities.

Lam recalled having thoughts of self-harm at the start of middle school. Those thoughts ended when classmates took him to church.

"Religion helped me," he said.

"I used to compare myself with classmates as I lived in Kam Tin, New Territories.

"I felt inferior in their company as some of them lived in large homes.

"I dared not to tell them where I lived," he said, noting that he too found it hard to adjust to academic and social life.

Lam attended secondary school in Kowloon in a district he wasn't familiar with, and his difficulties were compounded by its use of English as a medium for instruction.

He said he had nightmares often as there was no one he could talk to, adding that he felt lonely and depressed during the first three years of secondary school.

"In one of my nightmares, I was afraid of not having proper trousers to wear when visiting classmates," he said.

Religion gave him the courage to share his background with people. He eventually gathered up the courage to visit one of his classmates on weekends.

Lam emphasized he wanted to encourage students with his recounting of his personal story and to view it with warmth.

"I hope to make good use of empathy together with my experience to do well in the Advisory Committee on Mental Health," Lam said.