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Sally Yeung

What do a shy 16-year-old girl, an arts student and a new mainland migrant have in common?

They are all ordinary students with extraordinary achievements and also the latest winners of the Reader's Digest Courageous Young Ambassadors -  the award scheme recognises young people's dedication to community work.

We have all done volunteer work before, but how many of us have continuously devoted our time to helping others?

Well, winners Tsui Ka-wai, Queenie Yu Ho-man and Unice Chung Siu-yi, certainly have.

Ka-wai,  a 16-year-old student at TWGHS Li Ka Shing College, managed to beat her shyness and helped save a classmate from chronic depression - even though it took four years.

Having a vision and being fully committed to fighting discrimination earned 18-year-old Ho-man from Clementi Secondary School the Courageous Young Ambassadors award this year.

A keen social services volunteer, Ho-man has, since 1997, spent most of her free time educating others about Aids, and sex and health care education.

In 1998, Ho-man was nominated for the Outstanding Aids Worker Recognition Scheme. She empathises with patients and has no fear of the disease or its sufferers.

'The biggest problem is that the public misunderstands the sickness and sees Aids patients as bizarre creatures,' explained Ho-man.

Through educational activities that she has organised,  she has altered some people's misconceptions about Aids.

Siu-yi, on the other hand, showed that diligence can sometimes work miracles.

She left the mainland with her mother for Hong Kong when she was 12. Never once feeling out of place, the 17-year-old has, in one year, gone from not knowing a single English letter, to securing a place at the English-medium St Paul's Secondary School.

Her motto is that to win, one has to be able to face up to one's failures.

'I've always treated difficulties in life as a source of motivation to succeed,' said Siu-yi.

The Reader's Digest Courageous Young Ambassadors scheme was set up last year. The number of entries for this year has doubled to 97.

Six judges were invited, including Board of Education Chairman Moses Cheng Mo-chi, Committee Chairman on Home-School Co-operation Tik Chi-yuen and former Outstanding Youth in Hong Kong Mary Cheung.

Sally is a summer intern from the

Hong Kong Baptist University



Scheme recognises students' dedication to community work