During our community services, it is common to find young people who are misunderstood, disregarded or even rejected by others merely because they cannot express themselves well. These negative experience surely affect their development. To help young people build confidence, and to nurture an inclusive community, YWCA Western District Integrated Social Service Centre organised “See Our Voice” Arts Programme for Youth.

Unlike words and languages, everyone can communicate through arts. The programme gathered a group of arts students to be tutors and guide the young people to put their thoughts and feelings into works instead of words. Tutors and youngsters joined together to share their stories and appreciate how promising arts can be. They learnt to express emotions in different ways, and to enjoy collective creation without criticism and judgement.

Participants were asked to open up upon school life, friendship, worries about future, etc. Tutors, who have the knowledge and techniques, then helped them to embody the ideas with arts. 

One of the young participants, who had not enjoyed talking about her own experience and feelings that much, said she enjoyed chatting with the tutor. She created a series of work named “Who am I” with clay and masks. “I was bullied at school. I didn’t like it, and I wish everyone can get along… I have joys and sorrows, likes and dislikes. I hope you (the audience) will learn about all of them.”