Invest in Youth has changed its name, but not its purpose. Youth Matters echoes our mission to help and nurture young people to reach their potential and we continue to seek public support, encouragement and partnership in this endeavour.
 

This year approximately 114,000 Form 5 students sat the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examinations (HKCEE). The results have just come out and it's been high anxiety time. Six passes is the basic entry requirement into Form 6 and barely 42% made the grade. Of those, only 67% will get a sixth form place so naturally many see the exams as a significant hurdle and thousands* turn to us for counselling.

In order to help them cope the Federation runs a special large scale service called Form 5 Broadband 27771112 whose staff conducted a survey to find out how they were feeling. Over 25% said they became ill or could not sleep, such was their exam anxiety. 100 Federation counsellors do shiftwork during this peak period, talking to them and their parents, raising realistic hopes for employment and further education options and giving comfort and reassurance to the minority who are suffering emotionally. Fortunately, making it into the 6th form is not the only way forward and just a tiny minority have seriously debilitating symptoms so for those who need distraction we also lay on some fun. This year it was a Rap session at the Fringe Club - a great way to forget all about exam result stress.
*See Youth Issues below for more details of F5 Broadband 27771112

Tommy: Glued to the box - a tale of computer addiction

Tommy is at school in Tai Po. He's a clever boy and always used to get good grades. He went into the seeded class in F2, leaving all his old friends behind. That's when the problems started.

He was shy and his new classmates seemed indifferent. Tommy became withdrawn and his teacher noticed he no longer worked so hard. After school, instead of doing his homework he was playing interactive computer games. He played for longer and longer, forgetting to eat and sleep then find it very hard to concentrate in class the next day. The multi-user online games became a substitute for real life friendship. With his online friends he had no conflicts. Even chatroom interaction was unthreatening.

Tommy was hooked. The games ran 24/24, with players all round the world. He couldn't stop playing if he wanted to keep winning. He lost his appetite, couldn't sleep and started skipping classes. His teacher kept him behind to do his homework, tried to get him involved, even called his parents. Nothing worked so she handed Tommy over to the Federation's social worker. She tried organizing a barbecue and inviting Tommy's old F1 classmates along. It seemed to have some effect and Tommy picked up again with a few old friends but things went from bad to worse at home. His parents were more authoritarian than his teachers and they provoked the rebel in him. They cut off his computer's internet connection. What did Tommy do? He went out to a mong ba (internet bar) and sometimes stayed out all night.

At this crucial juncture the social worker had an idea. Tommy's teacher was leaving but she knew that he was very intelligent, sensitive and demanding and might respond to the right input. The teacher gave him a farewell message - a postcard of a tranquil scene with sheep grazing in open countryside. Her note read, "…if you ever want to be free you'll have to start working now…"

The message made its impact and the spell started to break but that made Tommy even more lonely and depressed. Then one of his online partners remonstrated when Tommy was furious with him for not being ready to play with him. "I've been out playing baseball - a real life game," he said," not just a computer copy."

After such a blow Tommy needed all the help the FYG social worker could offer. And she came up trumps. Unlike authority figures of teachers and parents she concentrated on building up a warm and trusting relationship. Then the egocentric Tommy started to look outwards again. He felt she really cared and in the end it was her who pulled him through . "It was like an awakening." he said.

The Federation's School Social Work Unit has trained counselors who work in 18 secondary schools and serve 17 others through the Youth SPOTs. 15% of the problems they deal with cases concern peer-relationships which range from poor integration to emotional instability. According to the Computer-Addiction Services at Harvard Medical School it's students like Tommy who are at the greatest risk of becoming unstable. 10% of all students have an internet dependency problem, especially boys, but often neither parents nor teachers notice it till it's too late.

Problems involving peer relationships are also a predominant concern among the students who call the Federation's hotline, Youthline 2777 8899. This hotline handled 90,000 calls in 2003-04. If you know anybody who has problems they'd like to talk over just tell them to call the hotline

100 hours of counselling at Form Five Broadband 2777 1112

Every year, from just before the HKCEE results are released till the following weekend we multiply our staff by 10 and 100 of us do shiftwork. Thousands of calls for advice come in from students who either phone or go onto the website wwu21.org.hk/27771112_new/index.html where there is both a chatroom and an online noticeboard. Last year we handled 8330 enquiries, suggesting to students the many alternatives open to them and advising them of a direction they might like to take. 4562 calls were taken on the F5 Broadband hotline, 3768 were on the internet, including 2741 via chatroom counselling and 967 via icq and the balance via email. We'll let you know how it goes this year.

Developing youth interest in sports

The Federation recently joined forces with Oregon Scientific to launch the "Oregon Scientific Youth Sports Scholarship Scheme 2004". We received 95 nominations for the awards within the stipulated three-week period and 34 students were selected. By means of the generous scholarship funding provided by Oregon Scientific, these students will receive coaching in golf, tennis, canoeing, wind-surfing, ice-skating and sport climbing. At the awards presentation ceremony on 7 August 2004, the Federation's Executive Director Dr Rosanna Wong said, "The younger the generation, the higher its participation rate in sports". She went on to quote supporting figures from a recent survey which revealed that sports participation in the age group 25-34 was 52%, while for youth aged 15-24 it reached 65 %. This scheme aims to provide professional sports training to underprivileged young people with financial constraints, thus boosting their chances in the sports arena. The 34 award winners will go to a 3-day training camp for building up team spirit and sportsmanship and will start the sports training program later this month.

Susceptible to cyber crime

Recently, as we say in the Lead Story above, online games have become very popular. In May 2004, the Federation interviewed 515 youngsters aged 12-29, among whom 73.7% had considered the possibility that they were engaged in illegal activities and could be criminally charged when playing online games. However, 78.2% of the respondents said they would not report the fact to the police even if they knew the games were stolen or pirate copies. The survey concludes that youngsters' do not have much awareness of how they might be in violation of the law and the Federation has expressed its concern over the situation. We recommend that civic education should include instilling the correct attitudes in students to internet crime thus preventing them from being such easy prey to the criminals of the cyber world. Click here to see the full report <青少年意見調查---「青少年參與網上遊戲：避免觸犯法例及
保護個人財物的意識」>