Youth Outreach

[1] In the years since its establishment, the organization has been devoting its services to help youth in critical condition or those who face major crisis in their life.

In 1997, the "Men’s Center" was expanded to include independent living dorms in order to accommodate and help find work opportunities to the growing number of older adolescent members in the organization.

A wide range of entertainment equipment is carried on board the rover, providing youth with a safe leisure environment.

Its purpose is to help older teenagers of age 16-20 who are employed but reluctant to return home due to dysfunctions in parent-child relationships, rebelliousness or other personal and familial conflicts.

Under a three-month contract, youth are giving temporary housing, whilst helped to establish self-reliance and a stronger sense of self-identity and what their purpose of life is.

A wide range of services are provided in the hall which include occupation and school referral, homework tutoring, individual/family counseling and psychological healing activities.

The School teaches young people the 4 elements in Hip Hop, including Street Dance, Disc Jockeying, Microphone Controller and Graffiti Writing(Oriental Daily News, 2010).

The program aims at providing a stable working platform for marginalized youths aged 15 to 24 who neither have skills of any kind, nor acquiring qualifications that help them to hunt for a decent job .

Green Friends also acts as a supporting team to help in different activities held by the organization such as Charity Milk Tea Rally 2009.

Youth Outreach has established several social enterprises dedicated to provide working and learning opportunities to youngsters in need, while operating their daily business.

[25] Co1 Infinity (Chinese: Co1設計學校), established in 2001, is a school of creative arts situated in the urban area of Hong Kong and is a social enterprise in collaboration with Youth Outreach.

[26] 7 Eleven is a large convenience chain store which works jointly with Youth Outreach to give youngsters the chance to learn customer service and management skills.

[28] At the company, youth are given formal and systematic training and practice are conducted by professional hair stylists so that they can be equipped with basic skills of hair-washing, hair-perm haircut and hair-styling.

According to an article in the Hong Kong Economic Journal (2007), daily routine of the youth includes participation in worship and praise sessions before work, and bible study group every Thursday.

Its program content includes Abseiling, Sport Climbing, and is aimed at promote the vigor of youth as well as physical and psychological growth.

The day is designed for parents and children from the local community to get a taste of activities offered by the organization and also provide a platform for members to share their stories and experiences.

The events are designed specifically for the young participants and focus on safety issues that youth might encounter in their daily lives.

The new course covers graffiti, drums, hip hop, musical instruments and dancing in order to broaden the extracurricular profile of youth and decrease their chances of finding fun in risky behaviour such as joining triads and drug abuse.

It was found that most of the runaway population were from relatively low income suburban areas and public housing estates such as Tai Po, Yuen Long or Tuen Mun.

Implications of this research are that to solve the problems of drug abuse, social workers first need to focus on combating the frustrations, peer pressures, and rebelliousness harboring inside the teenagers.

Conducted together with Hong Kong Institute of Youth Studies, the survey interviewed 184 teenagers aged between 13 and 18 on their internet lifestyle including online dating, friendship networks and found that more than 87% of teenagers befriend people of the opposite sex via the internet, and that over 72% of youth would participate in sexual activity upon meeting with their date.

The survey suggests that internet dating and subsequent unsafe sexual activity poses psychological and mental damages to teenagers.

Youth Outreach spends around 400 million HK Dollars on services and other additional expenses,[46] and as it is a non-governmental organization, most of the funding comes from private donors and the business sectors although the government also has provided support to this registered charity.

Picture taken showing outside of Youth Outreach headquarters in Sai Wan Ho
Outside of the Youth Outreach headquarters in Sai Wan Ho, HK
Picture showing the interior of Youth Outreach Headquarters
Interior of Youth Outreach headquarters in Sai Wan Ho, HK.