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Free brochures: Summer Youth Programme 2007
HKFYG Summer Youth Programme
brochures are now available free for collection at branches
of Joint Publishing Co, Cosmos Books Ltd,
the Baron
School of Music and Super Star restaurants.
Many thanks to them all and to MingPao as
well as the Baron
School of Music , Super Star Group and Yandy
Mays Culture Ltd, for sponsoring the programme’s
Lucky Draw, encouraging greater participation. The brochure
introduces 3,000 varied activities and includes this
year’s 3 themed activities: the HKFYG - 2007
Divac Youth Basketball Camp, HKFYG Mission Hills Golf
Club Golf Training for
young people and the LEAD Project. Programme
enrollment begins on Sunday 6 May. Call 35794560
for more information. Free copies are also available
at all 21 Youth S.P.O.Ts and the Youth S.P.O.T. Support
and Membership Unit, 6/F, Kam Chung
Commercial Building, 19-21 Hennessy Road, Wanchai, Hong
Kong.
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Cathay Pacific International
Wilderness Experience 2007
The programme has generous
sponsorship from Cathay Pacific Airways and has been
a great success since its inception in 1991. This July,
over 50 delegates from Hong Kong and 15 countries in
the Asia Pacific region will have the valuable chance
to go on an educational safari in South Africa, appreciate
natural habitats and learn about environmental protection.
Participants will also learn something of each others’
cultural traditions. A big thank you to Cathay
Pacific for covering
most of the costs involved in the trip, including air
tickets, course fees, accommodation,
meals and ground transport in South Africa. Click here
for more info:
http://ye.hkfyg.org.hk/hkfyg_en/
new/new.html
or call Miss Zhawnice Tse, 2561 6149.
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Celebration Photo Contest for
HKSAR 10th Anniversary
The Federation’s u21 youthnet
will organize this photo contest from 16 April till
the end of May. The theme is The most representative
scene and entrants will be in student and open
sections. Each section has 4 topics: social issues,
environment
and life issues, festivities, and people. Thanks to
all prize sponsors including Shun Hing Technology
Co Ltd, Microsoft Hong Kong Ltd, Muse Digital Ltd,
Chow
Tai Fook, Chilli (DIGI magazine), dcfever.com and CHKCI for
their support. The competition will be an outlet for
creative talent and will enhance skills and interests
in photography while stimulating collective memory.
Click www.u21.hk for
more info or phone 2831 9183.
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New
readers: please send your contact details |
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Exam
anxiety |
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This is the crucial period in the run-up to
the public HKCEE exams. We all remember pre-exam tension: the
apprehension, gnawing worry and stress that come with being
tested. It is perfectly natural to feel stressed and can act
as a good motivator. Unfortunately, it can also have terribly
negative effects on young people who do not know how to deal
with stress. Many of them have unrealistically high self-expectations,
they are under pressure from school to succeed and fear most
of all the idea of letting their parents down.
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HKFYG provides stress counselling
to counteract these negative effects. Hotline workers and school
social workers offer understanding and a calming effect for
panicked young callers who are overwrought and unable to concentrate
for fear of doing badly.
They reassure and explain how important
it is to understand how stress works in order to counteract
it. They tell disorganised students how to manage their time
for revision, giving practical advice on nutrition, rest
and relaxation as well as on the options just in case of failure. Read
this week's Feature Story and Facts & Figures for comment
and statistics from counsellors, parents, students and researchers
on the effects of exam tension. |
Feature
Story |
Time for exams: stress, symptoms and relief
Exam time is a very tense period for many Hong Kong youngsters.
They feel that their future depends on the outcome and the
most sensitive fear they are in danger of letting themselves
or their families down. The depression that follows can paralyse:
‘I feel as if my whole future depends on the results I get
in these exams,’ said Kao Lai-ying, a bright Form 6
student we talked to. ‘Exam results lay down the path
forward. If they are low-grade, uneven or unbalanced I suspect
that will
reflect everything that happens to me hereafter.’
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Federation social workers try to relieve the
pressure that leads to thoughts like these by giving sound
advice on relaxation techniques for stress relief. They also
pass on practical messages about well planned, prioritised
revision strategies and the need to recognize personal limits
in order to feel well-prepared and satisfied with a personal
best.
Phoebe, the hotline counsellor in charge of HKFYG’s Youthline
which helps young teens deal
with the extra stress and worry commented:
‘The internal and external pressure on students to perform,
combined in the run-up to HKCEE or HKALE, exert a terrific
stress on them. They lose their appetite, become insomniacs,
get moody. In fact they can become quite different from their
normal selves.’
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Many of us can sympathise with these symptoms.
Anybody who has experienced a phase of extreme pressure will
recognize them instantly. However, as adults most of us have
acquired a few tools that help us to cope and, ideally, achieve
a productive end-result partially because of stress. It can
motivate to higher achievement as well as cause adverse effects.
This is the underlying motive for pressure exerted by teachers
and parents alike:
‘Teachers keep on reminding you how important exams are,’
complained Lai-ying. ‘They tell you that every bit
of work you do at school counts towards your ultimate success
or
failure, so the tension gets prolonged and becomes a feature
of everyday life as exam time gets closer. You just can’t
focus on anything else.’
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What can be done to help provide more effective
coping strategies? It’s not just the exams that make students
stressed. It’s their parents and friends too. Parents naturally
want the best for their offspring and find it difficult to
resist encouraging them to try hard, or harder. Peers don’t
always help either. Some take an annoying ‘know-it-all already’
stance which might be make-believe but has the effect of making
insecure classmates feel they can’t possibly be so well prepared.
‘Unrealistic parental expectations have a lot to answer
for,’ said Phoebe, ‘but students set their own
targets too high as well, very often under the influence
of others
in their class. I tell them never to compare themselves
with others, always to look at the changes in their own
performance instead. That builds self-confidence, as long
as there have been signs of improvement. For lower achievers
I concentrate on trying to get them to recognize their
own limits, and I ask parents to do the same.’
The sad problem for many exam candidates is that they feel
the outcome of exams may depend more on chance than on their
own innate abilities. If they have an off day or feel frozen
by stress into an inertia that prevents any benefit from
the techniques we can teach them, the result is quite unpredictable.
In the achievement-oriented society we live in, parents
and students can end up chasing an illusion. To counter this
situation the Federation provides advice on the options to
sixth-form and higher education. If teenagers understand
that exam results are not the be-all and end-all, that there
are good alternatives to getting top marks, they may begin
to relax just enough to perform at their optimum levels.
And this is what we always strive to help them to achieve.
Contact Phoebe or Siu-man at Youthline, tel 2788 3433, for more info on stress
for exam anxiety and see Facts & Figures for the latest statistics
collated by HKFYG. |
Upcoming
events |
Dragon
Foundation Charity Premiere: Spider-Man 3 |
Date Friday 27 April
2007
Time 7.30pm
Venue Palace IFC, Central
Guest of Honour The Hon Ambrose LEE Siu-kwong,
IDSM, JP, Secretary for Security, HKSAR
Aim To raise funds for Dragon Foundation's
flagship programmes:
Global Citizenship Programme, Dragon
100 and Lecture Series for Youth Leaders
Enquiries Dragon Foundation tel 2811 2779 |
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A
cappella around the world Hong Kong Melody Makers in
concert |
Date Saturday 28 April 2007
Time 8pm
Venue Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Jockey Club Auditorium
Programme a cappella songs
Guest of Honour The Hon Michael Suen, GBS,
JP, Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, HKSAR
Guest performers Mr Hins Cheung, Mr Peco Chiu, Ms Yuki Ip,
Mr Albert Lim and Mr Eric Monson
Ticket reservations and enquiries Maggie Chung (Music Administrator)
tel 2395 5759 http://www.youthmatters.hk/Unit_HKMM/leaflet_front.jpg |
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10th
Coming of Age Ceremony |
Date Friday 4 May 2007
Time 6pm
Venue The Jockey Club Auditorium, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Guests of Honour
Mr Li Gang, Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central
People's Government in the HKSAR
Mrs Carrie Lam, Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs |
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Leaders
to Leaders Lecture Series 2006/07 |
Speaker Mr Shih Wing-ching, JP
Chairman, Centaline Group
Topic Visionary Thinking
Date Tuesday 8 May 2007
Time 6pm - 8.30pm
Venue Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU
Participants 300 nominated student leaders and university students
More details at http://www.leadership21.org/courses/ltl/guestinfo.doc
and http://www.u21.org.hk/partnership/issue92_jan2007/images/LTL.jpg
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Facts & Figures |
Perceptions of stress in exam
candidates |
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The Federation runs annual surveys
on stress caused by exams and runs extra hotlines to help anxious
candidates. From March to April 2007, 1410 students were asked
about their perceptions of exam-induced stress. Over 37%, mainly
HKCEE candidates, reported feeling high stress levels due to
approaching exams. Over 40% felt moderately stressed and 19%
considered their stress levels low. Over a quarter attributed
the problem to high self-expectations whereas about 15% blamed
parental pressure, closely followed by 14.5% who said their
anxiety was caused by the anticipated problem of getting into
the right school or university. |
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Last year, interviews of 938 students taking HKCEE or A-level
exams revealed that over 40% felt highly stressed about it.
Another 39% said they were under pressure because of exams.
Approximately 25% admitted that their stress came from personal
expectations of their own potential performance. 13% said
stress was caused by feeling unsure about the future and
about 12% said they were worried in case they could not go
on to do A-levels or get into university.
According to this year’s survey, the most evident symptom
of exam anxiety was insomnia, which was experienced by almost
17%. 11-12% had other physical symptoms, such as headache
or digestive trouble and over 10% reported feeling irritable
or moody. The most popular ways to relieve stress were listening
to music and sleeping (18-19%) 16% of the respondents went
online to distract themselves and 8% watched TV. Just over
11% found relief through talking to their friends.
When asked what level of preparation that had done for exams,
nearly 20% thought they had done little, but this is a subjective
measure only. 23% considered themselves well prepared and
over half felt they had done quite a lot of revision. The
students were also asked how much they thought their stress
levels were affected by the changes in the language syllabus
brought in this year. 28% thought the changes had a significant
to strong effect and nearly 25% felt unable to cope because
of the unfamiliarity.
Between September 2005 and April 2006, there were 538 Federation
hotline calls about exam stress. The numbers rose sharply
this year when 848 calls were taken from January to April.
The reason is that HKFYG now works proactively with a contact
list of exam candidates prone to anxiety provided by schools.
The aim is to prevent the escalation of exam stress and its
sequelae, especially in the light of the changes in the curriculum.
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The
Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, one of Hong Kong's
largest youth work agencies, has provided opportunities,
facilities and services to youth for over 40 years.
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