Hong Kong’s student suicide epidemic sparked an urgent collaboration between William SD Louey Educational Foundation and Suicide Prevention Services

Suicides are becoming increasingly common in Hong Kong, with statistics from The Lancet showing that it claims nearly 1,000 lives annually. What’s more alarming is that this problem is affecting younger and younger people as time goes on. According to data analysed between years 2018 and 2019, the phenomenon of students considering suicide increased by 50% during this period.

More recently, the SAR’s Education Bureau’s statistics showed that more than 90 per cent of student suicides were carried out by students aged 12 and above, with a total of 131 suicides recorded among primary and secondary students over the past five years alone. The bureau also find that negative interpersonal relationships as well as academic pressures and poor mental health were the factors that resulted in these recorded suicides.

It is also a known fact that young men in particular are adversely affected by this trend. As men account for 70% of overall suicides across the world according to a professor of psychiatry from McGill University in Canada, this fact is represented in Hong Kong too. Suicide Prevention Services (SPS), an established local helpline, reported that the organisation receives around 10,000 crisis calls each month, many from young men dealing with academic pressures, bullying and struggles with self-worth.

Breaking the silence

This mental health epidemic led Hong Kong philanthropist William Louey Lai Kuen, who founded the William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation (WSDL), to launch an urgent collaboration with SPS. The project kickstarted with the release of Breaking the Silence, an illuminating YouTube series targeting young students aged 15-25, particularly men. The series presented conversations in both English and Cantonese with Hong Kong-based Key Opinion Leaders (KOL), experts who are not only familiar with the academic pressures that the target audience faces, but who are also able to advise on how students can tackle many of the challenges they face both in school and at home.

The experts featured in this series are Stephanie Ng, the founder of Body Banter, a company that helps people overcome body image issues and amplifies their voices; Michael Chan who founded Companion HK, a company that fights the stigma around mental health; leading psychologist Dr Adrian Low who is also heads the Hong Kong Association of Psychology; Carlton Shiu, an ambitious social entrepreneur and TEDx Speaker; and Vivek Mahbubani, a stand up comedian born and raised in Hong Kong who performs fluently in both Cantonese and English and engages young audience members on serious social issues, including mental health.

The collaborative series presents anonymised questions that young men in Hong Kong are asking in the current climate. Shown in a Q&A format, the experts featured in the series then answer these questions using their own experiences and expertise. These video presentations aim to help young men feel like they can reach out to people they can trust about problems they are facing, instead of suffering in silence. The series also attempts to compartmentalise common problems that Hong Kong youth face, making them look more manageable in the long run, especially where peer pressure, strict parenting and rising academic pressures are involved.

Stress management tips

“Oftentimes, especially as a kid growing up in Hong Kong, it’s easy to feel like grades are defining of your self worth...without minimising the stress that this kind of pressure brings, I just wanted to remind you that grades don’t define you. Sometimes I look back at my high school self and I just think about how all-consuming grades seemed, and how all-consuming academic pressures, homework, and getting ideal outcomes in our academics, how all-consuming it feels for us in the moment.

“But think about how you might look back at a childhood experience, for example, when you were a kid, you put great importance on when someone took your toy car, or your toy Barbie, whatever your favourite stuffed animal was. At the time, it might have seemed like a very big deal, but then when you look back again, it kind of becomes an interesting memory, something that you learnt from, something that you’ve grown from,” expert speaker Stephanie Ng says in one of the videos. This was in response to the question, “What should I do if I worry that I don’t have enough time to study?”.

Stephanie Ng adds that it’s important to validate and acknowledge the stress one experiences, while also getting a perspective of the problem from one’s future self. She explains that by creating such a perception of distance, the challenge can be turned into smaller, more manageable sections that become less overwhelming to think about.

A passion for societal change

William Louey Lai Kuen, through his direct involvement with William S.D. Educational Foundation, is known for pioneering efforts to bring world class education to underprivileged Chinese students. Since the 1990s, the organisation has been giving away more than $60 million HKD in scholarship packages that include personalised mentorship programmes to help students achieve their academic goals in a balanced manner, with adequate support.

After more than 30 years of observing the world of education, albeit from a higher education angle, the recent statistics on the suicide epidemic in Hong Kong schools has made William Louey Lai Kuen more aware of the gravity of the situation, led a number o to the SPS collaboration in the first place.

Passionate about making lasting positive societal changes, William Louey Lai Kuen believes that tackling the mental health crisis that the youth in Hong Kong is facing is a matter of high urgency. He sincerely believes that there is a cultural angle to the pressures that Hong Kong students are facing, which mirrors the ultra competitive nature of Hong Kong society as a whole. He wants this to change, with the types of conversations that the Breaking the Silence project is generating online.

A meaningful step forward

“It’s a very meaningful thing to do,” William Louey Lai Kuen told Analyse Asia podcast about the collaboration. “Education has become so competitive now that it gets the children very depressed, and sometimes the parents are pushing them too hard. 2,000 people commit suicide in Hong Kong every year, and half of them are children.”

William Louey Lai Kuen is confident that by encouraging students to talk openly with non-judgemental experts, such as those featured in the Breaking the Silence campaign, more youngsters will come forward to get help, instead of facing the risk of poor mental health outcomes in isolation. “Young people need and deserve a system that prioritises mental health, eases academic pressures, and encourages self confidence and acceptance of an individual’s many strengths. I believe this collaboration will be a valuable step forward to protecting and improving young people’s mental health in Hong Kong,” he said.

The collaboration with SPS marks a new era for William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation, which is now more determined than ever to focus on mental health challenges that are affecting young people in Hong Kong. Find out more about this campaign here: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamLoueyLaiKuen

You can contact 生命熱線 Suicide Prevention Services (SPS) hotline at: 2382 0000