HKU’s impact extends beyond medicine, engineering and science as scholars have applied their research and expertise to improve the environment and the social and personal aspects of people’s lives. CHANGE FOR THE BETTER Sustainability Project Wins UNESCO Award The HSBC Rural Sustainability Programme operated by HKU’s Policy for Sustainability Lab was a recipient of the inaugural Special Recognition for Sustainable Development category at the 2020 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. The traditional Hakka village of Lai Chi Wo has been settled for more than 400 years but in recent decades, villagers have migrated or moved to the city and the farming land has lain fallow. The programme was launched by the Lab in 2013 to rehabilitate agriculture and revitalise the village community and culture in an environmentally sustainable manner. This has also involved reaching out to the wider Hong Kong community and raising awareness of the village’s resources and heritage. For example, a virtual festival held in February 2021 focussed on locally grown coffee beans to help urban people understand the value of local farming and its connection with ecological sustainability using an everyday product they are familiar with. Only two winners were selected from 48 entries from nine countries in the UNESCO awards. The jury applauded the Lai Chi Wo project’s approach and said it “upholds the key dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – in understanding the holistic rejuvenation of the historic Hakka agricultural settlement using nature-based solutions.” Recognition for Programme to Support Autistic Children The Faculty of Social Sciences has been working with the JC A-Connect: Jockey Club Autism Support Network to enhance support for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families and schools, including training key stakeholders and raising public awareness and acceptance. In 2021, the Network’s approach with schools was adopted by the Education Bureau, which provided an additional HK$62 million per year for small group training of students with ASD in mainstream schools. This approach is based on collaboration between schools and non-government organisations. It has been implemented in 510 primary and secondary schools, reaching 6,800 students – or about 55% of all ASD students in mainstream schools – and provided well over 90,000 hours of training in schools and more than 35 training seminars for teachers and NGO team leaders. The Network has also worked with paediatricians, clinical psychologists, social workers, educators, parents, young people with ASD and community partners to develop teaching aids and employment opportunities; provided training for caregivers; and organised more than 20 public education events for nearly 17,000 people. Dr Kathy Wong of the Department of Psychology leads the project’s school support team and Dr Paul Wong Wai-ching of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration leads the family support team. “The programme has produced positive outcomes – students’ communication skills, emotional control, executive functioning and problem solving have been shown to improve. Parents also report improved relationships and behaviour of their children, and teachers have better understanding and more confidence in understanding their students’ needs and problems and managing them,” Dr Kathy Wong said. Early Intervention Gives Non-Chinese Speakers a Better Start Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities have a poverty rate that is twice that of the general population. A key factor is the inadequacy of their Chinese-language abilities. A programme in the Faculty of Education is addressing the problem by targeting very young children through language programmes and training of teachers. The ‘Start from the Beginning – Chinese Supporting Scheme for Non-Chinese Speaking (NCS) Students in Kindergarten’ was started with six seed schools in 2015, led by Dr Elizabeth Loh Ka-yee of HKU and her collaborator Dr Tikky To-Chan Sing-pui of the Education University of Hong Kong. It now operates in 52 schools, providing a curriculum, teaching materials, small group and individual training for students, teacher training, workshops and an assessment tool. Language proficiency tests show that it is significantly narrowing the gap between Chinese and NCS students. The impact of the programme recently helped it attract strong funding support. It received HK$26 million as the first recipient in Hong Kong of the Pay-for-Success fund, in which funders provide money upfront for social programmes and are reimbursed by the government if targets are met or exceeded, as well as HK$18 million from Bank of China (Hong Kong)’s BOCHK Centenary Charity Programme. Together, these donations will help extend the reach of the Start from the Beginning programme to nearly 100 schools by 2023. “NCS students not only need good Chinese language proficiency, they need to perform as well as their Chinese counterparts. The bar is much higher than just learning Chinese language itself,” Dr Loh said. The HSBC Rural Sustainability Programme was selected as one of two winners of the inaugural Special Recognition for Sustainable Development at the 2020 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, out of 48 entries from nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The current Lai Chi Wo community is formed of indigenous villagers, newly settled farmers and volunteers. Different community groups and individual citizens outside the village were engaged in the HSBC Rural Sustainability Programme. They contribute to the adaptive creation of a landscape that ensures a cultural continuum and a respect for spirit of the place. Dr Kathy Wong (right) and Dr Paul Wong (left) shared the latest research findings and good practices in supporting the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) community in the Hong Kong ASD Conference 2021. Ms Hina Butt (left), Curriculum Officer, is providing Chinese language enrichment classes to non-Chinese speaking students using a Dynamic Enrichment Learning Mode at one of the seed schools, Pristine Kindergarten. The mural co-creation activity in Kam Tin provided children with autism spectrum disorder the opportunity to showcase their talents. Participating schools shared their experience, outcomes and gains from the project in a sharing session organised in July 2021. Knowledge Exchange and Technology Transfer HKU ANNUAL REPORT 2021 38 | 39
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