Christian Zheng school is an educational rehabilitation centre for teenage young offenders in Hong Kong located on Lantau Island. A volunteering opportunity came up for a group of us to be able to go and help out at the centre, I was lucky enough to be free to be able to go and spend the morning chatting and joining in with the students as they went about their Saturday chores. It was an amazing opportunity to see what a difference rehabilitation centres are able to make to people and the progress and the benefits being given a second chance has been for these students. They were polite, kind, so friendly, and so welcoming to us as we played games and sang songs and helped them to tidy their assigned areas.
As well as educating them through daily lessons, there was also a strong emphasis on equipping them with life skills enabling them to think for themselves and make the right choices. There was a focus on physical activities, war games, shooting, basketball as well as getting them to make different things for the centre e.g. work in the garden, make a basketball court, put a roof over the library. Such activities were designed to give them pride and community and the success of such activities was clearly seen throughout my time there.
Although we were only there for a few hours and I feel as if our impact was minimal, I came away with such a positive feeling about the place and I hope to be able to return on the next trip that is organized for us to go next month as it will be so nice to see the students again.
As we were on a tour around the school, one of the teachers explained the motto of the headmaster which I think will stay with me for a long time. Excuse the less than elegant phrasing but it has been translated from Chinese but I hope you will get the idea, ‘in life there is no success or fail, only giving up and not giving up.’ As I am realizing more and more, the end result is not important, it is the attitude and the approach which is the determining factor that will count in the end.
Thank you Katy Jones for organizing such a thought provoking and worthwhile opportunity to get involved and see yet another side to Hong Kong.
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