Through his work as executive director of Kids Everywhere Like You (KELY) Support Group, Chung Tang is brightening the lives of thousands of youngsters in Hong Kong. By running programmes to deal with drug and alcohol addictions, suicidal tendencies, low self-esteem and negative body image, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) offers hope to youngsters who feel lost.
Tang's team taught coping skills through the performing arts, design classes and video-making to more than 62,000 youngsters last year.
How did you get involved with NGO work?
I had studied sociology at the University of Toronto mainly because it seemed like an interesting subject, but when I graduated in the early 1990s, Canada was in recession, so jobs were hard to come by. I had friends involved with the Chinese Canadian National Council (CNCC), one of whom became my mentor. I started volunteering and then did an Ontario government training programme to work with marginalised young people.
Where did that experience lead?
I ended up working with a [Canadian] provincial government which had a big youth agenda at the time. There had been riots and, among the ethnic minorities, there were a lot of discontented, jobless adults and the kids were not doing well in school. My job was to reach out to ethnic minority and aboriginal youths, and run programmes that taught analytical and critical thinking, organisational skills and civic engagement.