This year, two HKMU students were awarded the “For Our Future” Scholarship from the Greater Bay Area Homeland Youth Community Foundation. One of them, Cherie Fung Pui-wing, is a student in mental health nursing and an archery coach. She has been trying to incorporate her understanding of mental health into archery coaching.
From coping with stress to delving into mental health
Taking up archery in Secondary 1, Cherie once reached a ranking of fifth in women's recurve in Hong Kong. While she first joined the school archery team simply because it looked “cool” to hold up a bow, she gradually felt a sense of satisfaction when hitting the bullseye. Yet the more she devoted herself to the sport, the more concerned she became about victory. “I'm a sentimental person. There were times when I cried after losing a competition,” she says. “But I came to understand that when you get to a certain level in archery, emotional stability is more important than anything.” For a while, she was in low spirits, finding herself stuck in an unbreakable bottleneck. It was her coach who helped her stay calm and refocus on muscle control rather than success. “I gradually learnt to enjoy the process of doing archery. Every time I released an arrow, it felt like taking a load off my mind,” she continues.
Meanwhile, Cherie was transitioning to senior years at school, facing more academic stress. She noticed different levels of mood disorders among her peers, with signs of depression, anxiety and even self-harm behaviours. This motivated her to join the child-led organisation Kids' Dream and be recruited for the Children Council in 2018. Along with around a dozen secondary school students, she researched and drafted a motion on the statement “The Government should formulate measures to address child suicide” and read it at the Legislative Council. Aspiring to be a nurse, it is not hard to see why she opted for the mental health stream of nursing studies in university.
When professional knowledge meets sporting skills
Studying at university, Cherie remains active in archery while navigating her busy life of studies and practicum placements. Last year, she achieved the Level 1 Recurve Archery Coach qualification. In coaching her students, she takes care to instill in them a healthy attitude. “Our society is rather result-oriented, so I remind my students to enjoy the process of doing the sport and encourage them to feel the interactions between the body and the bow,” she says. “When I teach kids, I turn archery into a game by asking them to aim for targets of different colours. If they're upset, I'll guide them to release their negative emotions with the arrows.”
At HKMU, Cherie is a mentor of the Peer Mentorship Scheme, which provides support for non-local students first arriving in Hong Kong. Making use of her knowledge and skills, she has done archery with her mentees, and has spotted mental issues in a mentee and made a timely referral. “Social stigma towards people with mental illnesses is quite severe,” she expresses. “Learning more about the discipline enables me to see how common psychiatric diseases are. Early detection and intervention can greatly improve the effectiveness of treatment.”
Beyond academic limits
Cherie is also keen on expanding her scope of knowledge. This summer, she went to Canada for the Summer School on International Business Management and International Marketing at the University of British Columbia. In addition to meeting students from around the world and getting to know cultural diversity, she was inspired with a new way of thinking. “Coming from a science background, my thinking tends to be rather straightforward,” she explains. “But in the business world, it isn't always either black or white. This reminds me to approach problems from different perspectives.” Cherie plans to get into psychiatric nursing after graduation and explore more possibilities to promote mental health literacy in various ways.
“For Our Future” Scholarship 2024
The “For Our Future” Scholarship aims to recognise local university students with outstanding academic performance, diverse talents and a strong dedication to community service. This year's awardees were offered a cash prize of HK$50,000 and the opportunity to participate in an exchange tour to Beijing. The other HKMU awardee is physiotherapy student Tammy Tam Ka-hei.
