Dialogue with Chief Executive

Chief Executive, Donald Tsang will hold a dialogue session with young people on his 2005 Policy Address at the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, 3:00-4:30pm, Saturday 15 October. Call 2564 1277 for further details.

 
Federation News

JUPAS and A.L. exam talk
The Federation's F.5 Broadband 2777 1112 service will be organizing a talk about JUPAS subject selection strategies and A. Level examination techniques on Sunday 16 October from 2-5pm in the Queen Elizabeth School. 700 F.7 students are invited to take part.

3 new Cyber S.P.O.Ts open
The Cyber S.P.O.T. project, sponsored by Microsoft Hong Kong Limited, has entered its 2nd year with 3 Youth S.P.O.Ts in Hung Hom, Heng Fa Chuen and Tin Yuet joining in. It provides information technology and training to underprivileged youth members, allows them to keep up to date, borrow a notebook computer free of charge and surf the Internet on broadband.

Professional adviser and life coach: the role of a Federation mentor
We have been talking to mentors on Federation programmes this week. They have widely varied backgrounds and include high-powered business executives like Christina and Ricky, senior government officer Dominic and deputy airport officers George and Josephine. They are among the mentors for the pioneering Airport Ambassador pre-employment training scheme* and the latest Federation initiative for getting young entrepreneurs started, Youth Business Hong Kong.** What all these dynamic people have in common is their agreement over the most important aspects of mentorship. They say it is fundamentally a unique, one-to-one partnership which thrives and focuses on good communication.

George told us about his recent experience with four Airport Ambassadors. The seventh batch has just joined this well-established programme. Its concept is to bring young people into the work force, providing them with training in customer services before they work under supervision in the passenger terminals, improving their interpersonal skills and building team spirit in the process of gaining vocational experience.

'I am often aware of the generation gap between us, but getting close as a friend and mentor who listens and exchanges ideas with them, dissolved that. We talk about all sorts of things, including work attitudes, ambitions and doubts. Good listening skills, and networking are vital on both the individual or a corporate level, and I can use the mentorship relationship as a model for them to copy at work.'
 

One of the first priorities for all the mentors is understanding the mentorship process while the mentees also need to know what to expect of their mentor. A mentor's multiple roles include advocate, visionary, facilitator and guide. A good mentor protects, counsels and confirms, but he or she must also share and challenge. Just seven lucky candidates have been selected for Youth Business Hong Kong, a brand new Federation programme which attracted over 90 applications. They will benefit from the supportive mentorship of people like Dominic, Christina and Ricky.

'It's a relationship between senior and junior in both experience and attitude but not necessarily in terms of age. It's a dynamic, co-operative, partnership', said Dominic, '…and I will never forget that I am not the boss and my mentee is not one of my staff.'

CEO of a well known Hong Kong soft drinks company says that he knows he will have to deal with all the doubts and worries of young business entrepreneurs, the grey areas where being hesitant may mean failure but where being confident brings rewards.

'The ability to take risks is a key feature of successful businessmen, but to be a risk-taker you have to be confident. Confidence is what we as mentors try to give, whenever it is needed. For that, you need a close, trusting relationship.'

How do you establish that we asked.

'I plan to do some role play,' said Christina. 'For example, I will set up a scenario where my mentee tries to convince me about a proposal with a presentation. Getting practice like that could really help. We mentors also plan to set up an Internet portal so that we can discuss progress and share ideas.'

'It's a question of being prepared to give immediate, unstructured, unplanned responses. Being positive when the unknown and risk can cloud judgement. Reminding them that if they work hard and work smart, putting 100% of their effort into an idea they really believe in, they will find the road to success,' said Ricky.

'Good businessmen need drive and resilience', said Dominic, 'they need to know how to cope with failure as well as success, capitalizing on the experience of others.'

Reflecting on her time as a mentor at the airport, Josephine said:
'Motivating them was hard to begin with but I soon learned the ropes. You can't just be a mentor at work. You have to be a life coach too - my young Airport Ambassadors feel free to call me any time. They send e-mails and text messages outside working hours. It is very much a 2-way, reciprocal relationship - I showed them how to be responsible adults and they show me how to stay young at heart.'

complexities and challenges of life and work. Their words of advice are for young people on the first rungs of a career ladder but they are just as good for any ambitious young person. It is a question of understanding and empowerment.

*For more information on Airport Ambassadors visit www.yen.org.hk or see Youth Matters 35.
**For further details about Youth Business Hong Kong contact Louisa Lau tel 3113 7999, email ybhk@hkfyg.org.hk, visit www.u21.org.hk/ybhk or see Youth Matters 53.

Facts & Figures

Federation poll of views on homosexuality

The Federation conducted a survey recently on attitudes to homosexuality among the general public. Approximately 1,000 Hong Kong people aged 12 or over were interviewed between 29 August and 1 September and 68% of them said they were not at all reluctant to make friends with gays. Over two-thirds thought there was insufficient sex education in Hong Kong but a worrying 30% or more were completely intolerant of homosexuality. On a 0-10 tolerance scale with 10 marks indicating the highest tolerance level, the overall average tolerance was just 3.86. Those aged 16-20 were the most tolerant of gays, with an average of 5.61 on the tolerance scale, the highest level of all age groups but higher tolerance was given to female homosexuals than to males. 56.4% of those surveyed said they disagreed with the idea of homosexuals having the legal right to marry.
 

With reference to the recent landmark ruling in the High Court that Hong Kong's current homosexuality legislation is unconstitutional, 45% of the interviewees considered the ruling reasonable. The ruling of the judicial review upheld the view that the current ordinance is discriminatory because it prohibits male homosexual intercourse between the age of 16 and 21. 61.7% thought the ruling was intended to protect human rights but 53.7% were still of the view that it would increase the possibility of young people being tempted into high-risk forms of sexual intercourse. 53.3% said the ruling would increase equality between the sexes while 48.1% thought it would lower society's moral standards. Last week a petition with 25,700 signatures urged the government to appeal against the ruling which it did on 1 October.
Click clear for the full text of the poll survey…

Brainwashing: a new way to diet

Volunteers in the UK have shown that suggestive techniques may help them to modify their diet. The experiments were done by Elizabeth Loftus* - well known for her work on memories of childhood abuse - and involved instilling unpleasant false memories of certain foods, like ice cream. A group of students completed a questionnaire about what they liked to eat and then some of them were given a bogus computerized report saying that as a child certain ice creams made them ill. 20% of them were so impressed by this suggestion that when they filled in another form on the subject of diet they said that they would never eat this ice cream again. Even more impressive was another experiment where 41%, asked if they could remember details the imaginary bout of illness, were perfectly able to do so. Meantime, results of research at Harvard Medical School** have shown that girls who eat chips once a week between the age of 3 and 5 increase their risk of developing breast cancer before they are 60 by 27%. The good news is that ice cream seemed to have no similar effect.
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm
The Week 3 September 2005, p.17