Newsletter 2022-06-30
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Newsletter from Arts for Good Foundation - June 2022
Welcome to the June 2022 newsletter from Arts for Good Foundation. This month, we have been reflecting on connected learning and interconnections in the world around us.  As a deep believer in connected learning for younger generations in Hong Kong, we hope to help future generations to view Hong Kong and the world from varied perspectives and with connected mindsets. With the connected mindsets, students will be able to understand the world and human life from a holistic point of view that helps develop the soft skills they need to deal with the complexity and ambiguity of the world around them.

Best regards,
Amanda H Sun
Change Maker
Founder& Director
 
Textile Installation Art Making Workshop

We were delighted to work with 25 secondary students at a local school to host a textile installation art making event. Thanks to the contribution from artist Ane Alfeiran,  we continue to bring textile art making to a wide community of beneficiaries in Hong Kong, including NGOs and those who might have not have access to the mainstream education system.

Through this textile installation project, we taught the youths to express how their complicated feelings interact and change with time and space. The art making process helped them to understand the complexity of their surroundings and how people intertwine with each other within complex social systems. We encouraged the youths to navigate and seek ways to better understand complex environments, while respecting  individual and collective feelings in the process.  

We were delighted to see the students were in awe of their own installation.   We would also like to thank our volunteer photographer,  Billy Chan @billychanphotography who was a tremendous help with the  event on a very heavy rainy day.   
 
HKU x Arts For Good Art Viewing Study Groups at Museums: Facilitators' Training and Student Participant Recruitment

Continuing with our collaboration with The University of Hong Kong (HKU), we were pleased to offer training to  a cohort of 20 facilitators. This programme aims to provide meaningful experiences to the participating HKU students, who learn to connect with the community through art viewing facilitation. 

We are thankful to our advisor  and Education Psychologist, Michael Su, who co-led the training with our Founder, Amanda Sun. Michael and Amanda   stressed the importances of facilitation skills to support the education of younger generations. They introduced the students to Arts Integrated Teaching (AIT), which focuses on asking questions, overcoming challenges and learning through experiences rather than direct instruction. It enables students to explore ideas instead of passively receiving information, and to work together to solve problems and seek potential solutions.

More importantly, the trainers emphasised the importance of attitude and passion for facilitators.  They were encouraged to tell stories that arise from their own experiences and are relevant to the lives of younger generations, and to explore inter-/multi-disciplinary knowledge as a means to influence small changes. This approach arises from our belief that telling an impactful story begins from who a person is.

At the same time, we emphasised the value of participants approaching the programme with a beginner mind (rather than an expert mind). Arts for Good Foundation believes that fostering a beginner mindset is fundamental if we are to make positive changes to the future of Hong Kong.  A beginner mindset enables future generations to seek their own paths and to create different possibilities for our future society.

We are thankful to the social workers from various NGOs who help us to recruit younger participants for the programme. We are eager to fill up the capacity with student beneficiaries from diverse backgrounds. We are also thankful to have corporate staff volunteers from Credit Suisse and others, who will  provide onsite supports for the delivery of this programme.
 
Summer Art Making with NGO (BGCA), Corporate Venue Sponsor (The Mills), and Corporate Engagement Partner (Credit Suisse)

We are thankful to have received support from a number of artists for collaborative art making events that will take place at The Mills from the 1st August to the 5th August. We look forward to these opportunities to deliver meaningful art making projects  in partnership with young artists and educators who are passionate about exploring their thoughts about our society and making small but important contributions through collaborative efforts.  

We are thankful for the venue support from the Mills. We also welcome Credit Suisse as our Corporate Engagement Partner on the 5th August, when we will deliver the workshop with collaborating Chinese Calligraphy artist Katrina Mo (IG: momographyhouse) and Sound Artist Alain Chiu. We are looking forward to a meaningful, collaborative, and enjoyable art making afternoon with children beneficiaries of BGCA (香港小童群益會).

Meanwhile, we continue to seek supports for the art making events on the other four days (i.e. 1st August - 4th August) at The Mills.  
 
Interview with Effective Change Podcast in the United Kingdom (UK) on Spotify

A huge thanks to the Effective Change Podcast, a student-initiated Podcast produced in the UK. On a recent episode, our founder, Amanda Sun,  shared her   journey of founding Arts for Good Foundation, her vision for the foundation and how she is striving to work with supporters and collaborators to make small changes in the way we educate our children. She also encouraged youths to join the change making journey with Arts for Good Foundation. 

We were delighted to have an insightful discussion with Effective Change and hope to reach more youths both overseas and in Hong Kong to contribute to the future of Hong Kong. 
 
Student NFT submissions (LINK HERE)

In March , we launched our student NFT project . At the very difficult time due to the pandemic, we called for students to express their feelings and to share their thoughts and observations about Hong Kong with creativity, care, and hope.

Jasmine Ho from English School Foundation (ESF) created 喜喜 (Picture 1), inspired by John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. 喜喜 is a visual metaphor of Ophelia’s death, in which she sees a parallel for how brides-to-be in Hong Kong feel about how Covid restrictions crushed dreams for weddings during the pandemic.

Zhang Tingting from Chinese International School (CIS) created “Lights 光”   which she intends to express hope. This artwork implies that we all continue to fight the pandemic and to see the light amid the darkness (Picture 2). She had learned that one in ten residents in Hong Kong show symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after the first year of the pandemic. Her work shows light amid the challenges that Hong Kong has experienced, including shortages of food and daily supply, family separations, hospital bed shortages, and more. 

Estelle Chan from Harrow International School created A Day of October (Picture 3). She observed marathon runner training in Hong Kong and found it inspiring and empowering. She depicts the fast pace of Hong Kong at the same time as locals embrace  positive and peaceful moments. She also expresses her concern about the challenges for students who have faced online learning, workers who are worried about work environment safety, and problems in the elderly care services sector, all of which urgently need to be resolved. Her work advocates for positivity and healthier lifestyle to help build a brighter future and calls for kindness and warmth in our community as she expresses hope of  a resumption of normality in Hong Kong.
For enquiries, please email us at info@artsforgoodfoundation.com.
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Arts for Good Foundation, Hong Kong SAR China