US
About
ORGANIZER
Background
The Love Our Kids Foundation Limited 樂基金有限公司 (LOK) was founded in February 2016 after the “LoveOurKids Campaign 動。心行動” was launched.
In 2015, a flood of suicides among students and youth was alarming and triggered great public concerns. The “LoveOurKids Campaign” grew out of a recognition that Hong Kong students face enormous psychological pressure in their lives, largely school-related, and that there was an urgent need to act to reduce them. LOK wishes to address, in particular many of the root causes of mental distresses among young people through the amazing cushioning effects of expressive arts. Our primary aim is to reduce the pressure students face, in order to create a healthier and happier future for Hong Kong's young people.
Brief Introduction
LOK, an all-volunteer organization, was started by parents but includes teachers, principals, and helping professionals (expressive arts therapists, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and paediatricians). We feel that mental wellness and youth suicide is often closely linked to the school- and test-related stresses that young people face, combined with the lack of means to reduce those pressure.
Students are surrounded by their parents, teachers, and peers. These parties are the primary triangle of a student’s life. So, working with this "triangle" as the foundation of creating a firm ground for our young people is part of our work too. For parents and teachers, LOK supports them to learn how to better listen deep down to the hearts as well as fears students are facing and try to facilitate them to help solve those problems before becoming too much for students to shoulder.
We are working to promote a balanced, high-quality education and mental wellness support for all students and youth in Hong Kong. In short, we aim to create a supportive environment for them to enjoy learning, experience creativity, enhance self-discovery and access effective communication by using expressive arts.
Expressive Arts Activities
Our first effort is to address some of the root causes of suicide and student mental distresses by conducting a series of in-school trainings and workshops for parents, teachers, and students. The workshops aim to raise the overall awareness of student mental wellness and build skills around asking about and true listening to students' issues and reducing the amount of psychological stresses. Through the expressive arts activities, we aim to facilitate parents and teachers to see students’ issues creatively and non-judgementally, increase trust between them and students, and to work together to build a "triangle of trust".
The trainings and workshops include days of Expressive Arts activities including Visual Art, Music, Drama, Movement and Dance, and Story Telling, etc. We are helping students create access and build confidence to talk about the pressure and challenge they face, to create avenues to vent them out in their lives and ask for help solving them.
The key message is that all students need to have somebody (or some art means) they can turn to when there are pressure or problems they cannot manage by themselves, and that this is a key step towards reducing student suicide, and creating a happier future for our young people.
PARTNER ORGANIZATION
"DanceAbility Hong Kong"* was established in May 2016. We are committed to promote improvisational dance through which people of different ages and abilities are encouraged to explore and express themselves in this kind of art form. Since our official opening, various dance activities have been actively promoted, including: monthly dance classes, outreach programmes, workshops and performances with different organisations. All these events help promote our mission and provide opportunities for the public to experience improvisational dance. While enjoying the dance, we can also learn from the diversities and break the barrier between each other.
Through improvisation as a medium, we let everyone know themselves from the perspective of using the body, and improve their ability to express themselves and personal growth. Impromptu dance focuses on exploring new possibilities. Unlike the concept of traditional dance, we don't need a unified standard, but we can pursue everyone's continuous growth in the personal field and find wider possibilities. At the same time, through communication in impromptu dance, to explore more bridges between people, so that they can know each other better.
We hope that the public will be interested in performing arts through participation and break the inherent impression that dance is out of reach. Through physical interaction, we can communicate with each other. Whether it is a dancer with professional dance training or a public of different ages or physical abilities, they can participate and enjoy dancing at the same time in order to break the boundaries of existing concepts. All artists who want to develop related to improvisation, have a wider platform for mutual communication and connect with the world.
What is our dance aesthetic?
We value the personal uniqueness! Each different body has its own learning process and can continue to grow, even pursuing wider possibilities.
Getting along with our body is a lifetime thing! It is both the most basic and the most important practice. Through constant practice, not only understand the body and accumulate physical experience, but also be aware of our habits or restrictions, so as to open up our new potential. Start with the internal experience, and expand to communicate with others, and explore to build more connecting bridges between people. Knowing each other and breaking the barrier.
We believe in working with all people who want to dance.