From Receiver to Giver – Empowering the Marginalised
From Receiver to Giver – Empowering the Marginalised
Shi Jiahui’s Story
Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
BASc(GHD)
Being a newcomer to Hong Kong, Jiahui has been struggling in overcoming the language barrier in adapting to the local community. Yet, she managed to break free from the shackles with her own effort and CEDARS support, and attempted to reciprocate the support to the community.
Growing up and receiving her secondary education in Shanghai, Jiahai had little exposure to Cantonese, the dominant medium of communication in Hong Kong. However, landing on her new journey at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) virtually, she soon realised that there was not much opportunity for her to build rapport with the locals at campus, let alone integrate into the local society. That being the case, Jiahui made efforts in watching a host of Cantonese shows to learn about conversational phrases used by the locals. Believing that language competence improves only with real-life practice, Jiahui took the initiative to attend “Survival Cantonese” organised by CEDARS in her first semester at HKU, which rendered her a platform to engage in real-life Cantonese conversations with her classmates and polish her spoken Cantonese significantly.
Jiahui has a life motto of giving help to and empowering people.
Jiahui has a life motto of giving help to and empowering people. Witnessing that many of her peers were going through the similar language plight she had before, Jiahui was determined to give back to the community with her English language competence. Therefore, she signed up for “Peer English Tutoring” organised by CEDARS in order to empower her peers with little confidence in spoken English. She adopted an encouraging approach with her three tutees, as she understood how low self-confidence can plague ones’ competence from her personal experience. Unexpectedly, she developed intimate relationship with one of her tutees, and they became close friends out of classrooms.
Being observant at other predicaments, Jiahui has always wanted to spread the caring spirit across community, not only limited to language struggles. Pursing a global health degree, she noticed how mental health is becoming a pressing issue among the juveniles. As a genuine believer in the value of peer support, Jiahui has been mobilising student volunteers with psychology or counselling background to offer one-to-one peer counselling services to those in needs. With less than a year of establishment, her mental health project has helped students with all sorts of pressure – academic stress, adaptation issue, and relationship struggle.
Jiahui has been mobilising student volunteers with psychology or counselling background to offer one-to-one peer counselling services to those in needs.
In the near future, Jiahui hopes to expand the scale of her project and to reach out to more students in needs. It is her sincere hope that community support can be sufficient so that no one will ever have to go through the same plights she had.
Written by:
Carmen Ng
Year 4, Faculty of Social Sciences
January 2022