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Workshop Session 2 - Student Organizations
Neurodiversity Club CDNIS
Ava and Martin
The Neurodiversity Club aims to promote respect, inclusion, opportunity and awareness in the neurodiversity community. They believe the drive to develop inclusiveness does not come from the school administration but is dependent on understanding from a community perspective, which includes all students, teachers and staff. Their key initiative is to create more understanding of neurodiversity and inclusion through raising awareness and volunteering activities.
Ava was born into a neurodiverse family, and her brother has autism. So everyday she see the struggles, the exclusions, ostracisation and discrimination of the neurodiverse community. For most people, her brother may not be an easy person to connect to, because he doesn’t like to respond to people or have the best attentive listening skills. When her family moved to Hong Kong, she became a conduit to connect her brother with people at his school, and in the end they included him and accepted him. It made her realise that while there may be some people that discriminate, isolate and exclude those who are different, there are also people who embrace, accept and include them. That is why spreading awareness and understanding of Neurodiveristy is so important to Ava, and is also the reason why she founded the Neurodiversity club at CDNIS.
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity International is a multinational organization that works and advocates in across the world; Habitat seeks to build "a world where everyone has a decent place to live" and to "bring people together to build homes, communities, and hope." HFH builds, rehabilitates, and repairs simple houses with help of the families, volunteer labor, and donations of money and materials. In addition to this, fundraising and conducting advocacy are a big part of HFH's aim in Hong Kong. At CDNIS, HFH aims to educate the school community about the global issue of substandard housing in the world and to participate in build trips across the Asia-Pacific region to do our part, as students, in providing housing for low-income individuals and families in need.
We have hosted several successful campaigns at CDNIS, with one of them being our annual "Paint Your ___" event. Our first theme was Paint Your Brick which took place in 2010, and most recently, in 2022, the theme was Paint Your Patch. During the event, students donate money and paint the object that is chosen that year. This event not only raises awareness through fundraising and advocacy, but also provides the opportunity for Lower School and Upper School students to make a difference and to give their time and efforts to support a great cause as there are often very few occasions that enable us to do so.
At the SDG Summit this year, we plan on hosting an interactive workshop with several activities to raise awareness and discuss impact. Firstly, there will be trivia to help everyone get to know Habitat for Humanity as an organization and also as a club at CDNIS. Next, we will have a scavenger-hunt type of activity to do in groups, where students will read articles, do their own research, and fill in a puzzle. We will follow that with a discussion on affordable housing solutions, and then end with a debate about the way money from fundraising should be used.
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Eco Impact HK
Grace L.
Grace is the founder of ECO Impact, and a grade 8 student at Diocesan Girls' School. She is a passionate climate advocate. Besides, she enjoys doing MUN, volunteering, video editing and catching up on more sleep. Jessie is the co-founder and Head of Events, also a grade 8 student at Diocesan Girl's School. She is a 14-year-old with a wide variety of interests but never stuck on one. She likes reading, playing lots of different sports and blasting music very loud to block out reality. Vian is one of the members, also a Form 2 student at Diocesan Girls’ School. As a climate advocate, she believes that by leading as an example to help the environment, others might do so as well; that explains why she is a vegetarian -- to help the environment and protect animals. Her various hobbies include playing the trombone, MUN-ing, reading voraciously, going to beaches and doing outdoor activities. Chinny is a 15 year old student at West Island school. Passionate about everything related to social and environmental sustainability, she dabbles regularly in engaging with youth organisations dedicated to mitigating the climate crisis.
ECO Impact HK is a youth-led organization promoting environmental awareness. We focus on posting infographics on social media to advocate about climate change and host events such as beach cleanups.
The Greenhouse & Fridays for Future HK
Max F.
Max is a 17-year-old climate activist from Hong Kong, he is a member of Fridays for Future Hong Kong and is a co-founder of The Greenhouse initiative here at CDNIS. His activism story has been featured on Greenpeace, SCMP young post, LePetitJournal and Ming Pao weekly. For the past year and a half, Max's mission is to motivate individuals to switch to sustainable habits, make sustainable choices and to feel the urgency for climate action. For eight months consecutively, he has been standing on streets holding cardboard signs that reads “climate action now” and “stop shark finning”, attempting to call for climate action by interacting with passersby and getting their opinions on the issue. Since April of 2022, he has switched to using Instagram as a way of interacting with the general public and he is currently continuing his activism work there.
For the summit, Max will be hosting a Climate fresk card game workshop. It is based on a 42-card game. Using data from IPCC reports, it will guide participants to discover the cause-effect relationship of climate change.
Making Waves Club
Ema, Alyssa and Ella
Making Waves club is a student-led organization established as a result of a grant from Kids4Kids Action for a Cause Programme. Their pitch for making a movie was selected as one of the finalists that received financial support and the support of a mentor, Jeremy Hung from BabelFilm Workshop. Ema’s short documentary about Hong Kong corals achieved success and won several awards at international film festivals. While working on the film with other young filmmakers, they saw the need to promote sustainability and raise awareness through visual storytelling. Their mission statement: A group of young storytellers and filmmakers dedicated to ocean protection.
My name is Ema Poposka and I am an award-winning film director, writer, and photographer. I believe in the power of storytelling to challenge our opinions and values. Growing up close to the ocean has made me aware about the importance of protecting life under water. My first documentary The Living Sea has received more than 10 international awards at film festivals across the globe, raising awareness about Hong Kong corals, why they are important and the need to protect them. I am also the founder of Making Waves Club and the Ocean Youth Eco Film Festival that aim towards inspiring young people to use creativity for sustainability.
Hello, I’m Alyssa. I am in Y8 in RCHK. I am part of Making Waves Club because I get to learn more about protecting the ocean and animals that live there.
Hi! I’m Ella, an avid reader who loves stories and Christmas. I am part of Making Waves Club to learn more about film-making and how I can use it to spread a message, and also because I used to have a goldfish and I wanted to help protect it’s former home, in some way. If you have a goldfish, say hi from me! I hope you have a great day :)
Dominic and Helen
Kick Action connects students’ passions in the martial arts to democratise self-learned spiritual and social empowerment for marginalised communities. This service uses the martial arts as a bridge not only to bond with members of these communities, but also to help boost their self-confidence and wellbeing. Volunteers have the opportunity to teach a fusion of the martial arts to domestic workers, specifically with regard to sparring tactics and performance every Sunday morning at Victoria Park.
Hi everyone, I'm Helen Song, a Y12 student at CIS and the co-leader of Kick Action. Having trained taekwondo for over 10 years of my life, Kick Action helps me give back to the martial arts community. This year, our team is striving to improve our outreach so that we are able to empower even more domestic workers and to also upgrade our coaching. Outside of Kick Action and martial arts as a whole, I enjoy finding good foods to eat on Deliveroo and spending quality time with my friends. Looking forward to meeting everyone at the summit!
I am Dominic, a year 11 student in CIS Hong Kong and a co-leader for the service Kickaction. I have always been an avid martial arts fan, starting with watching MMA in the UFC and developing my grappling skills from wrestling. I am currently branching out with the help of others in the team to learn boxing and jiu-jitsu, hoping to pass the knowledge on to domestic workers.
ORBIS Club CDNIS
Shun Kiu and Marcel
Orbis is a club modelled after Orbis International, an NGO, whose mission is to eliminate and treat avoidable eye diseases in developing countries through strengthening the capacity of our local eye health partners to prevent and treat avoidable blindness. The purpose of the club is to provide opportunities for students in upper school to become active citizens who make a positive impact on these communities. We wish to educate about these issues through activities and educational materials and to raise money to subsidise medical treatments for the visually impaired, as well as for advocacy activities.
For the SDG Summit, Orbis will hold a simulation with 5 separate stations which aim to teach participants more about the visually impaired community in Hong Kong by emulating daily challenges they face. Participants can freely rotate throughout the various activities, re-experiencing common daily tasks from the new perspective. These stations will include a goal ball simulation (a paralympic sport), wake-up simulation (turning off an alarm and folding clothes), transport simulation (crossing a street and following a tactile paving path), restaurant simulation (utlising chopsticks to move food), and school simulation (decoding braille text).
Minds Aligned
Lauren, Venita, Allyson & Selene
Minds Aligned is new CDNIS mental health club started in 2022. The founding of Minds Aligned was inspired by the mental health organization Bring Change to Mind (BC2M). When the club first started, they had a great opportunity to reach out to BC2M’s regional program manager Margaret Burton who worked with the club at it’s very beginning to set a good foundation and understanding of what a mental health club should do and its mission. It’s now the year of 2023, and Minds Aligned now has over 20 general members and has presented multiple campaigns and fun activities both school-wide and to the upper school cohorts.
Minds Algined will be hosting their activity "Sharing the Light." They will be sharing brainstormed questions about mental health, and have participants respond to them by shining their cell phone light in the air. This workshops aims to allow participants to feel a sense of belonging and community. It should be able to show the vast amount of people who are directly or indirectly affected by mental illness.
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