Hello!

As you may know, I have always been very passionate about the arts, with dance holding a dear place in my heart.

But did you know that this love for the arts and dance was actually ignited by the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation? I started dancing when I was 13, which is considered rather old for someone to start. I wasn't particularly confident in a class full of much younger kids, but I was determined. And when HKYAF held auditions for dancers to perform at the HK Handover a year later, I was completely taken aback when we were asked to create our own choreography. As most of the classes I had taken up to then just required me to copy and perfect a set of movements, I didn't quite know "how to do it". But I tried.. and I LOVED IT. 

And that's what HKYAF is about - empowering young people to be creative, to step beyond their comfort zones and try something new. HKYAF helped me to become more confident, to find a creative outlet, to interact with young people from all different schools and people across all walks of life, and to gain a greater sense of belonging and connection to HK. 

When I moved back to HK a few years ago, I came back to HKYAF and it really was like coming home. Like empowering the youth, HKYAF empowers their staff. We have the privilege of dreaming up of and then delivering really diverse meaningful projects that really impact ourselves too. In the past year, we've trained youths to do suitcase theatre skits in recluse elderlies' homes, we've brought together teens to work with migrant mothers, elderly, ethnic minorities, we've gathered 400+ people aged 6 - 86 to dance together in a 20 minute piece, we've put on a successful theatre show where over half the cast had never even done theatre before, we've run parades throughout Causeway Bay... but most of all, we've helped young people gain precious life skills. Even if they don't realise it, these memories and skills will always stay with them.

But we don't receive any regular government funding despite the fact that we work with over 80,000 young people every year! So we need your support! I'm running this race this time to help fundraise for HKYAF... on a healing sprained ankle! So 10k is a challenge, please support me and the wonderful work that we do at HKYAF!