The HUB Hong Kong aims to tackle rising stress, anxiety among underprivileged youngsters in the wake of Covid pandemic
- Charity plans to launch new project next September with support of Operation Santa Claus
- ‘We want to raise awareness about mental health among underprivileged children because they have no resources,’ executive director Josephine Leung says
The HUB Hong Kong, a charity dedicated to giving educational support to young people from underprivileged families, is embarking on a new mission to address students’ mental health needs after many reported increased levels of stress and anxiety in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We want to raise awareness about mental health among underprivileged children because they have no resources,” said Josephine Leung Wai-lin, the charity’s executive director. “Sometimes they don’t know what they’re going through.”
Leung said her team came up with the idea for the project after noticing an increase in stress levels during the pandemic among teenagers and parents living in Sham Shui Po.
“Throughout the Covid years, within this community we serve, we noticed a lot of the families suffered from stress and anxiety,” she said.
“The children were stuck at home doing three years of online learning, with no interaction with their friends. Even now they still wear their masks. They don’t feel comfortable without them.”
Parents also felt stressed with children being at home most of the time, which created a lot of tension, especially among low-income families living in tiny subdivided flats, she said.
“For the parents, they don’t have time to take care of their mental health,” Leung said. “We taught them about ‘me time’ and a lot of parents told us that this was the first time they had heard about this.”
