For the fifth year in a row, Finland is the world's happiest country, according to World Happiness Report 2022 rankings, while Hong Kong dropped to 81st place. "Emotional education" is a continuous and permanent learning process; in light of the pandemic, building resilience skills is essential. Two alumni, Raymond and Macy, demonstrate resilience leadership and make a difference to support youth's mental health by forming their organisations.

Graduating from the University in 2017, Raymond Yeung founded "JUST FEEL" with his peers, aiming to empower educators and parents to nurture the next generation by embracing Compassionate Communication and Social Emotional Learning. In junior form, Raymond often volunteered at HKFYG Jockey Club Shaukeiwan Youth SPOT (hereinafter referred to as the "Centre"). He came across the Institute's "Hong Kong 200" leadership programme (hereinafter referred to as "Hong Kong 200") by chance, which made him curious about "leadership training". He was eager to serve the community more than just volunteering. Influenced by his own adverse childhood experience from family and secondary school education, Raymond believes everyone needs a platform where they can be understood, valued, and cared for. However, he observed that most local students are not good at expressing feelings and lack support from teachers. Therefore, he set up JUST FEEL, a charity that aims to transform the communication culture in schools and families to enhance the emotional well-being of children.
 

Raymond was also pleased to meet other potential leaders from different schools at Centre and Hong Kong 200. The small-group learning model inspired Raymond to explore an ideal business model. Under his leadership, teammates at JUST FEEL can respect each other's needs and have the courage to express feelings while acknowledging power differences rather than adopting a top-down organisational structure. On the interview day, Raymond invited Chung, a youth worker at the Centre and Jenny, his trainer at "Hong Kong 200", as both have had a profound influence on his perception of human relationships and emotion, to conduct the interview together. Chung has known Raymond for 15 years and was invited to join his organisation last year. He frankly shared that Raymond had also influenced his life, allowing him to understand the world from a new perspective. Jenny explained that as witness of Raymond’s growth shifting role from a student to a social entrepreneur, she remembers to stay true to her aspiration to be a social worker.

It is not easy for a fresh fledgling graduate to become a social entrepreneur managing both social and business missions. Raymond recalled the experience of supporting women communities to gather leftovers from different parties, thus giving him satisfaction of being able to communicate directly with the targets in need. These experiences gave him the confidence to lead the team to understand service users’ needs proactively and develop solid solutions.
 

Raymond is not alone in focusing on youth emotional health. Macy Chung, a second-year law student at the University of Cambridge, was a participant in "Hong Kong 200". In September 2021, she and her friends founded Heartline, a social enterprise that provides emotional support to youngsters through online texting and telephone calls every night from 7pm-5am. The team believes that effective listening can heal the emotions of those who seek help, so they line up professionals and provide regular training to young people, with the aim of having them as volunteers. Macy also leverages her legal knowledge to assist the organisation's development. Since September 2021, Heartline has served more than 1,000 young people, and hopes to expand its scale in the future to support a wider audience.

Macy joined the "Hong Kong 200" by school nomination in 2017. From the core training process and leaders' dialogue sessions, her commitment to serving the community continued to grow. In Form 6, Macy participated in the Institute's Summer School for Global Leadership as a group leader. She became more competent in the role of a leader to support others and inspired her to establish Heartline. She explained, "In the 10-day programme, I had to lead younger team members to develop improvement plans for a social enterprise. The organisation's story inspired me to take advantage of my school time to help those in need." Now, leading a team of 150 people, Macy believes that "everyone has what it takes to be a leader as long as they have passion and responsibility."

This year's Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (DSE) will start on April 22. Under the pandemic, candidates are facing tremendous pressure. As an experienced person, Macy suggested that everyone should give more support and understanding to candidates and convey more care by phone or text message. And Raymond believes that everyone should remember "Connection before the Pandemic" (先處理心情，再處理疫情) , accepting our own feelings first before handling the public exam and pandemic.
 

In February, the Federation initiated Caring to Call - Calling to Care, aiming at providing services that cover emotional support, telemedicine services, short-stay accommodation, donations of anti-epidemic materials and career advice. The Institute also supports DSE students in various ways, such as connecting the alumni of "Hong Kong 200" to provide academic support. Supported by Sino Group and its philanthropic arm, the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation Limited, the Institute also offers short-term accommodation for this year's candidates who live in subdivided units.