In this episode, #impact co-host Belinda Esterhammer sits down with Teen’s Key Founder Bowie Lam.
Regina Larko 0:00
To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, this is Sustainable Development Goal 5. One of the targets of Goal 5 is to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking, and sexual and other types of exploitation.
I am Regina Larko, founder of #impact, A podcast about stuff that matters. If this is the first time you listen, welcome, we are so glad you’re joining us. As we are leveraging the power of voice to drive positive change. In our current Season 5, we celebrate innovative changemakers tackling the Sustainable Development Goals. And today, you follow our co host Belinda Esterhammer to a conversation with Teen’s Key. Teen’s Key is a registered nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable young women and girls in Hong Kong.
Teen’s Key works for and with marginalized young women and girls. This includes those who work in the sex industry, young women faced with an unwanted pregnancy and those vulnerable to sexual health risks. This is the first time a representative of Teen’s Key gets to share their story on a podcast. And it is a story that needs to get heard.
The topics discussed in this episode are mature. Listener discretion is advised. Find more information about this podcast at www.hashtagimpact.com/season5
Belinda Esterhammer 2:01
My name is Belinda Esterhammer and I’m here today with Bowie Lam, Founder and CEO of Teen’s Key. Welcome Bowie, So great to have you here.
Bowie Lam 2:10
Hi, Belinda. And Hello, everyone. This is Bowie.
Belinda Esterhammer 2:13
Can you please tell us more about yourself and Teen’s Key?
Bowie Lam 2:17
Yes, sure. I grew up in Hong Kong and born in Hong Kong. So when I turned 21, and I’m still I was still studying at the University. And I took an internship at Ziteng another NGO that is advocate for sex workers, right. And the experience was just so inspiring.
So long story short, I start the NGO right after the internship finished, Teen’s Key. So Teen’s Key is helping vulnerable young women in Hong Kong, especially who work in sex industry and then with unwanted pregnancy and difficulties with their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Belinda Esterhammer 3:02
I’ve been a fan of your work for several years now. Whenever people are looking for a charity and NGO to work with, you’re really on top of my list. Can you please tell us more about how you get started with Teen’s Key and what inspired you to start?
Bowie Lam 3:21
Yeah. When when I took an internship at Ziteng my role is to do outreaching so I need to go to the one woman brothel in Hong Kong is a very special format of sex work in Hong Kong because of the law. So the sex worker can only work by themselves. If you are more than one sex worker in apartment that’s illegal. But if you work alone, that’s okay.
So if you see some neon light, pink neon like in some old building, that probably the one woman brothel sex worker, so I need to go outreaching so it’s kind of exciting. You know, when you’re studying when you’re young, and you know, I need to visit a sex worker. I have so many, like, stigmas about sex worker from the movies or from the Media, oh they are sexy, they are like maybe a bad woman. I don’t know. So I was so exciting.
But when I have chance to get to know these women it totally breaks the stigmas. They are just normal women. They are someone’s mother, someone’s daughter. They have a family to support. So I’ve built a really good relationship with some of the sex worker I visit.
But sadly, in 2008 there were two serial killer. So when one killer has been arrested, we thought it was one, but actually there is another copycat killer so they murdered 4 sex workers within, I think three or four days. So during that period of time, the sex worker were very scared.
The NGOs are also working really hard to update the sex worker about the police forces. So I need to talk with the sex worker too. So I visited one of the sex workers.
She is kind of my Auntie, we have very close relationship. Every time I went there, she would give me soup, it’s really nice. So it’s like, just like having an Auntie in your life.
She’s in about mid 40s. And she comes from Mainland China. And like, when I visited her and told her about the updates about the murder, and she was just so scared, you can see the look in her eyes. She’s very scared.
However, she said, she still needs to work, because she has a family to support in Mainland China, including her children, her parents, her husband.
So I think why a woman have to work so hard to support their family. But in the meantime, most of the mainstream media is very hard on them, blaming the sex workers, what they describe the murderer is like, oh, how much money the sex worker earn. And then they even post the victim’s photos on the newspaper. It just make me so angry.
So it made me reflect that what can I do more for these sex workers. So after I graduated, I talked with the boss, the supervisor at Ziteng. She’s very generous to provide me a seed grant to start a new organization. So that’s why I started and I decided to focus to younger sex workers.
Because I think that the faster we engage with them, the sooner we help them with their difficulties, the faster they can leave the sex industry or they can find their dream, find the work they want to do. And then this step was my first job.
So I think that Why not? Let’s just start. If it’s not success, I can try another thing. So that’s why I start the organization.
Belinda Esterhammer 7:19
That’s amazing. Can you also give, as you mentioned, give our listeners more insights into the sex workers that you work with? And what are their dreams? Yeah.
Bowie Lam 7:32
So for the sex workers, I know, most of them have not decide to do sex workers in purpose. Like somehow, they are facing financial difficulties because of their family because of their husband, boyfriend or their own financial issues like debt, credit card, or other things.
Some of them like meet some friends that told them about this. I know this business can, money can solve your problems. So they started but most of them are just young women. Oridinary, very ordinary young women when I met them.
It’s just a teenager, that wears sports shoes, t-shirt, jeans, and come to our center and tell us that she’s studying, that she would like to do some sports, she likes makeup, and just like a very ordinary young women they also have so many different dreams.
I met one girl. She likes cars so much. And then she has some difficulties, so she gets in in the sex industry. But when we talk with her, find out what she wants to do, she told us that she wants to open a car repair shop.
Yeah, that’s very interesting. You never can imagine. And she’s awesome. Like when she hears the engine sound of a car, she can differentiate the car brand.
Belinda Esterhammer 9:17
Wow.
Bowie Lam 9:18
Yeah. So their dreams are just so different. We have girls that want to open a bakery shop, want to be an engineer, want to be a teacher, want to be a social worker. They are just ordinary girls.
Belinda Esterhammer 9:34
So with these girls, how do you help them to get out of the sex industry if they want to follow their dreams?
Bowie Lam 9:42
Yes. So our main target, or ultimate goal is not only about getting them out of the sex industry, we want them to have the skills and confidence to open the door for their future.
So we do a lot of stuff. Soft Skills Training. Also, counceling because of their past experience, and then we will help them to make a plan for their future. For example, the girls who want to open a car repair store, we suggest her to get a driving license first. It’s very first step, because in Hong Kong, you know, that is very difficult to open your own business. However, if you take it like step by step, you can learn how to drive a car first.
So we met her for like four years ago, now she has four different kind of driving licenses. And then she took part time job for some company. But she also already has a very concrete plan that she was she wanted.
So sometimes the dream sounds very impossible. But if you break down like piece to piece, like, plan it by step by step, you can achieve it somehow, maybe not exactly the same way you wanted to, but still, the thing you enjoy, and so we try to encourage them and help them to figure out how she can achieve it.
Belinda Esterhammer 11:06
Would she has be interested in an apprenticeship as a mechanic?
Bowie Lam 11:10
Yeah, maybe she’s still working on it. But we at least think that Oh, seh has four driving licenses is already very good and closer to her dream.
Belinda Esterhammer 11:20
That’s amazing. If anybody has any connections with mechanics get in touch with Bowie please!
Bowie Lam 11:25
Yeah, thank you.
Belinda Esterhammer 11:28
That’s all that’s so lovely. And apart from your work and advocacy with sex workers, you do so many other things. Tell us more about it.
Bowie Lam 11:37
So for Teen’s Key, we focus on vulnerable young woman under 25 years old, especially with the difficulties around their sexual and reproductive health and sex workers is one of our main community we serve, and another one is young mothers.
We found that in Hong Kong, there’s not many support for the pregnant girls. And then if they decide to become mothers, because these girls, a lot of them don’t have, like they didn’t get married, or their partner disappeared somehow. And they are still very young, even if they have been married their partner, that’s probably a very young boy, too.
So there’s a lot of stress and challenges when you raise a children, not only for young woman, but also for like everyone who is a first time parent.
But for the young woman, especially, they don’t have much money, they don’t have much support. So it’s very difficult. And we find this group of girls, especially if they are very serious about parenting, sometime because of the stigma.
A lot of people think, Oh, you’re so young, so you can’t be a good parent. So they want to do more to prove to themselves maybe and the outside that they can be a good parent. And sometimes they forgot they are a young woman too.
So for Teen’s Key we have launched a club called Young Mothers Club. So we invite the young mothers to be the committee of the young mothers club, they love the club, they recruit members, they decide what activity they want to do, even for efficacy to so we want to train their leadership skills, and they have a safe space to practice that leadership skill and encourage them to remember they have their own dream too.
They are young women today, they are not only a mother. So we are very excited about this because like last year, some of the members they launched a survey to ask for the difficulties of the Hong Kong young mothers and they send the result to the legislative counselor and say oh, there’s not enough support for young mothers or ordinary mothers in Hong Kong. So because there is not enough nursery support, so they can go to work or go back to school.
So if they feel this, they are very inspired and we as an organization, we definitely can lead them because we understand their situation. So yeah, the Young Mothers Club is also a very exciting project for Teen’s Key.
Other than that we also focus on topics like reproductive health, especially for the girls who gone through abortions. There’s not so much support in Hong Kong, especially under COVID, public hospital have been stopped for non emergency surfaces, including abortion,
Belinda Esterhammer 14:52
so they can’t get an abortion here right now.
Bowie Lam 14:54
No.
Belinda Esterhammer 14:55
Oh, wow.
Bowie Lam 14:56
And usually some people will go back to mainland China, but now obviously they can’t. And the only place they can go is the Hong Kong Family Planning Association. But there are some restrictions. If you’re pregnant over 10 weeks, you can’t do surgery there. And then you have to go to a private hospital and you can imagine the price.
Belinda Esterhammer 15:20
Yeah.
Bowie Lam 15:22
Is around in Hong Kong dollars is around 20,000 to 30,000. So for grassroot family, or brothel women or young women is very difficult to access. So during the attempt this time, like our hotline, we have a hotline for young women with crisis. The inquiry about unwanted pregnancy in the last year have doubled compared to the same period of time the year before.
Belinda Esterhammer 15:54
Wow, we will share the hotline and all details at the end of this episode. FYI, if you’re right now listening, but that’s crazy that it doubled. And did you also get calls from girls that go the illegal route and try to get an abortion that way?
Bowie Lam 16:12
Yeah, when you’re desperate, you want to try everything you can grab on. But it is very dangerous. We do not recommend anything that is illegal. It’s not only about being illegal, it is unsafe. It’s life threatening.
Yeah, we heard one girl called us before because she can’t access the safe abortion in Hong Kong. So I think she searched on the internet that some kind of drugs can help her to do the abortion, but it’s not correct.
But the worst thing is, she ate the whole pack of the medicine. So is she is feeling very unwell, uh, sweating, and she was in a lot of pain. So she called us but when she called, it is too late, because she already took the pills. Yeah. And then we help her to call 999 immediately and then they help her to the hospital. And that is the worst thing that we don’t want to see.
But under this COVID circumstances, there is not much we can do. We organized a webinar last month, a training for frontline social worker, the teachers and we update them about the situation now that what they can prevent this happening.
So we also invite people from Mother’s Choice and from the Hong Kong Family Planning Associations to tell them about the current options, like you can still go to the family planning, but you have to go there earlier, because they have a time restriction.
So sometimes the young woman, because they are very passionate. So when they are still considering they waste some time. So we encourage the social worker and the teachers, if you know that the girls are in this situation, you should encourage them to think faster, you can still go to the family planning. If not, and if you decide not to become a mother yet, you can consider adoption.
Mother’s Choice has a very good program to support young woman who decide to put their babies into the adoption system. So we help introduce these informations to more professionals who will engage with young woman. Hopefully, this can help, but it’s the least thing we can do now.
Belinda Esterhammer 18:44
Yeah. Wow. And in terms of prevention, what advocacy work do you do?
Bowie Lam 18:50
Yeah, so for these unwanted pregnancy situation, we actually we engage with the hospital authority and update them about the situations. So we got some information about the public hospital faster, and then note when they open and when they close for the surgery.
And then we try to coordinate with the resources the society has, especially with the Family Planning Associations and other NGOs too. So we try to coordinate this information and update this information to the young people.
They also work with schools. Yes, we do our prevention program with schools and NGOs to bring a sexual health education program with them. So now a lot of education program is run online but we still have chance to engage with the young people.
So for Teen’s Key we think that comprehensive sexual education is very important to young people. We can’t tell them “you can’t do that, you can do this” because they engage with the information every day on the Internet already, so we need to teach them or discuss with them as soon as possible.
So our program consists of workshops, starting on puberty, your body change body image to how to protect yourself. Safe sex, sexual health, and also a respectful and consensus how this is important to build relation, a healthy relationship with your partner, maybe boys, maybe girls, but we think this kind of education is very important to young people.
Belinda Esterhammer 20:38
So important. Can you share some numbers of unwanted pregnancies amongst like teens under 25 in Hong Kong, do you have some statistics?
Bowie Lam 20:46
Yeah, unfortunately, the government don’t have this correct number. But we are from the informations for Mother’s Choice. They I think,they hire, or they find a consultancy firm to estimate: It is around 8000 every year.
It’s not in the COVID period, so we don’t have the exact number. But by the inquiry calls we have, and also the coordination with the other local NGOs. We know that the numbers increased a lot, and we can estimate next year and this year, there will be a lot of young mothers.
Regina Larko 21:30
Starting conversations, educating showing young women their choices. Teen’s Key work is instrumental to supporting this vulnerable group of young women. Before we continue on to hear more about how exactly Teen’s Key advocates and takes action, we want to highlight a Hong Kong based podcast that also has Sustainable Development Goal 5, to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, at its heart.
In the Changing Room is a podcast all about women in sport, hosted by the very talented Cissy Radford, the conversations that she brings to the listeners are encouraging, empowering and deeply touching, as she finds out from the amazing women she interviews on the show how sport, in whatever form it takes, has changed them. Find In the Changing Room Podcast over www.instagram.com/inthechangingroompod and start listening today. Now back to the conversation with Teen’s Key.
Belinda Esterhammer 22:43
Let’s talk about how important your work is around sex education. Because everybody expects schools here in Hong Kong to teach the young generation, these kids how to, I don’t know use condoms, and how the body works. But from my experience talking and working with a lot of younger girls or the younger generation, there’s not a lot of work that the schools actually do around.
Bowie Lam 23:09
Yes. So in Hong Kong, sex education is not compulsory for school. The Education Bureau has kind of soft guidelines for schools who want to teach sex education. And the most updated one is from 1997. They I remember at that guideline, they still have information about ICQ.
Belinda Esterhammer 23:38
laughing
Bowie Lam 23:40
It’s just too outdated. And then because it’s not compulsory, schools can decide, do they want to do it? And because in Hong Kong, for secondary school, that’s high school, the local schools around almost half of them have a religious background.
So if they’re religion is saying that Oh, we don’t want to teach it, or I want to teach abstinence, it’s okay for them. The educational bureau don’t have any regulation that how you should teach.
So apart from do they want to teach this, is also how and what they want to teach. So a lot of NGOs actually offer sexual health education, and the school can order from the NGOs or partner with them.
Hong Kong have around 400 something High Schools, and Teen’s Key can only engage with about 20. And there’s also other NGOs but really depends on the school, do they want to do it? And I remember our team, they have promoted education program to the local school. Some teachers just respond “Oh, we don’t like to do it. Our student is very innocent. They don’t need it.” So it really depends on the teachers on the school to they want to teach it.
Belinda Esterhammer 25:07
That’s, that’s crazy. I did not know that it’s up to the schools to actually educate on sex. I’m only mentioning it also because I recently had a chat with this younger girl. I mean, by young I mean, she’s, you know, early 20s. But, for example, she didn’t get sex education at school. And now that she started, you know, having a boyfriend and having sex, she doesn’t really know what contraception to use.
And you know, she was talking about something like, Oh, yeah, she had to go to the doctor because she had some issues. And because they weren’t using a condom, and then she said, but if he’s not gonna come in me, I can’t get pregnant. And my friend was like, Oh, my God, oh, my God. And yeah, we were freaking out. We’re like, what should we do with her? Like, it was just mind blowing, because she goes to university here to one of the good universities. And she’s educated.
For us, it’s just mind blowing to think about how can you not know about these things? So my friend, she was trying to tell her about the pill. And she’s, she just didn’t get it. She just did not get it. So we had to send her a link. You need to watch this little video. But we also like she’s in her 20s? Why do we have to do this. My friend sent her to family planning. Okay, so to actually talk about it with some specialist. We’re not specialists. Yeah, that just when you were talking about sex education just made me think, why do schools not educate on it?
Bowie Lam 26:42
So for Teen’s Key, our approach is, when we talk with the teenager is not only about the knowledge, you can assess the knowledge on the internet, like now, there’s so many information online, but you need to pick the correct one. So we think that knowledge is important, but the awareness, and the attitude is also very important that the awareness is that you need to use condoms to prevent HIV, the knowledge is how to use the condom.
And attitude is that if I don’t use condom, I will get HIV. And then so I need to take the action to protect myself, even as a woman, I don’t need to be embarrassed to talk to my boyfriend about oh, I want to use a condom. So this is the attitude.
Belinda Esterhammer 27:35
And get tested. Yeah. If you use a condom, beforehand.
Bowie Lam 27:38
Yes. Correct. And then his attitude is very important. It is the key for the action part. Sometimes we talked with a young woman and she said, Oh, I know how to use the condom. There’s a guideline at the condoms box. But when you asked her, did you use it every time? She said no, because maybe she said, Oh, I’m a girl. If I bring up about I want to use the condom, my boyfriend might think I am a slut and I have so much experience on sex. So that’s about the awareness thing.
It’s also about the gender equality thing that as a woman, can you bring up that I want to use which kind of contraception or protection. And also some time is that she said, Oh, for the sex worker, especially, they want to prove that it is different from their client. So you are my boyfriend. So I don’t use condom and I only use a condom with my client is like proof that they are true love. So there’s so much we not only need to teach, but we need to discuss openly with the teenager and know what they’re thinking.
Belinda Esterhammer 28:47
Yeah, yeah, it’s so important what you are doing. And yeah, it’s just shocking. Can you share some statistics that might also shock our listeners.
Bowie Lam 29:00
So far, we have a survey for the teenagers we engage with. So in Hong Kong, you think that we are very, very, like, glamour city. Most people get educated, like you said, but like, I remember almost like 80% of them have answered wrong about the safe sex method. Like we have some question about the myth like, okay, using two condoms. It can protect you from HIV or pregnant. A lot of them. Click Yes and then like, only gay people can get HIV.
Belinda Esterhammer 29:43
People also said yes to that?
Bowie Lam 29:45
Yes, there are some so there’s a lot of myths. I think that only 20% get all like around 10 question. Correct. A lot of people get it wrong.
Belinda Esterhammer 29:54
Oh my God. So if you’re listening right now, you use one condom and not only gay people get HIV.
Bowie Lam 30:00
Yes, The correct answer is if you have sex and don’t use condom to protect yourself, you can also have a chance to infect HIV and other STD. And then a lot of people when, especially when we ask them about the resources, many people don’t know that Hong Kong have free clinic for STD.
Belinda Esterhammer 30:26
So that’s free clinics where they can test.
Bowie Lam 30:29
Yeah, for STD if you search, the clinic is called Social Hygiene clinic. There’s a few of them. So they don’t call it like STD clinic because people don’t want to get in an STD clinic, but they call it Social Hygiene clinic. And their service is actually quite good and confidential. It’s free. So, but during COVID I remember most of them have closed so that’s another problem.
Belinda Esterhammer 30:57
Friends of mine they went to family planning to get tests. I don’t think it’s free but it’s still pretty affordable.
Bowie Lam 31:03
Yes. At the family planning, they also have some other tests like pap smear, and other very good quality tests they offer. But the social hygiene clinic focus is on STD.
Belinda Esterhammer 31:15
Okay, that’s great. Yeah, also get a pap smear just go to these facilities if you don’t use them already. It’s really, really important. And can you tell us more about how you actually measure impact? I mean, you have so many initiatives. Some of them you have not mentioned yet, but how do you actually measure impact?
Bowie Lam 31:37
Yeah, so we we measure impact in a very realistic way. For the different projects, they have different kind of measurement. For example, for the sex worker projects, we differentiate the impact with three layers.
First of all, we have to ensure the girls health. So we provide like around 400, HIV tests, free tests for the girls every year. And then we keep track for the cases that about how often they do the HIV test. And this relates to our awareness and education to their sexual health, our team will encourage them to take the test every three months. So we keep track of the girls will they do the HIV test every three months, the success way of the project is quite good. It’s around 80% of our case, we’ll come back every few months to take the test.
And also for other projects, we also have some soft skill training too. So we will measure their knowledge and knowledge, attitude and awareness changes. As some projects we measure the confidence too, because we think for the young woman, especially for the vulnerable young woman’s we work with a lot of them and they have confidence issues. And it’s related to how they implement their dream, their confidence to set a boundary with their partners. So there’s so many things that relate to confidence. So confidence is a key measurement for our organization too.
Belinda Esterhammer 33:19
And with your HIV testing, do you also test on other STDs?
Bowie Lam 33:23
We only do HIV and syphilis because it’s the two most common STD that appears in the young woman’s group. It is a rapid test, so they can come to our office. Only 15 minutes they can know the result. It is very quick and very accurate. But for other STD we have partner doctors and clinic that they can go test.
Belinda Esterhammer 33:49
That’s amazing. And can you share some statistics on HIV? How common is it in Hong Kong?
Bowie Lam 33:54
In Hong Kong and the most update data I forgot it’s not very high rate, but it’s around 4 to 5%. But it’s more often at the homosexual community. So for the heterosexual community, especially the young woman is actually not very high. For Teen’s Key for last year we don’t have any positive cases. However, we we observed that the syphilis have increased a bit. So we have we have been worried for the community. If there’s one positive case, it will spread very quickly.
Belinda Esterhammer 34:35
I mean, we saw it with COVID. If you think it can’t spread think of COVID and then yeah, treat sexual diseases like COVID
Bowie Lam 34:46
Oh, that’s true. That’s a very good prevention slogan.
Belinda Esterhammer 34:50
Yeah, like, wear a mask, wear a condom. There you go. Your marketing slogan for this year.
Bowie Lam 34:59
Okay, I will suggest to the team.
Belinda Esterhammer 35:03
So with all the work that you’re doing, some of it can also be dangerous. So how do you keep going when all the odds are against you?
Bowie Lam 35:13
Yeah. Especially for what Teen’s Key is doing, like, sex worker, unwanted pregnancy, even abortions, there’s many people think that, oh, we shouldn’t teach our girls about safe sex, or like sexual health, because it will encourage them. Or I even heard that people told me that, oh, you help the young sex worker, that means you encourage them to continue doing that.
We don’t think so. We think that the least thing we can do is offer them protection, and give us a space to this community. No matter if they are a sex worker, or if they become mothers at very young age, or if they had abortions.
They already have a lot of difficulties, and they struggle too much. At least we can create a safe space for them. And then we guide them in the right way to help them make smart decision in the future.
When I start the organization it is a bit more difficult to let people understand because I was young too. So I have so many experience that I was the youngest person, like I was 20 at the meeting table. Sometimes when I when I have a meeting with like the government, or the police official, like we have meeting about how to protect sex worker about how to make a better prevention policy, and then, so many times I’m raising my hand and no one, no one, sees me or like people don’t want to hear from me, or they think, oh, we shouldn’t do it in this way. But I think we need to prove the fact for them with data and with the stories of the girls.
Teen’s Key is that like, it is related public health, it relates to our next generation. So we stand very firm about the value we have is that we have to provide a safe space to the most marginalized community, the young woman in Hong Kong, and we need to take a step ahead, meaning that we need to be comprehensive about our sexual health education. So I spend like last 10 years to prove to the public about this. I think some people have a better understanding about what we are doing now. But I there is still a lot of work to be done.
Belinda Esterhammer 37:36
How do you make yourself heard?
Bowie Lam 37:53
I think it’s a very good strategy for every young woman too. My strategy is to find your partnership before the meeting. So I try my best to send emails to schedule meeting for some person in the meeting individually first and try to engage with them. I find and spotlight two or three people, they may support my opinions and I try to communicate with them before the meeting. And there’s a few times that I remember during the meetings, no one wants, I’m raising my hand so hard, but no one cares. But the person I communicate before, they understand what I’m thinking and they want to support and they have a higher authority level, they might help and a few times they said, okay, they pick me out as I want to ask question and they ask me “Bowie, do you want to say something?” And I’m so appreciative of their help. So you need to find your partnership during this situation, I think is so helpful.
Belinda Esterhammer 39:01
That’s a great tip, especially for introverts and yeah, how to get your point across. You’re also, you’re Asian, you also look younger than you are. I have the same issue. So I think we face also a lot of struggle, of you know, getting taken seriously. I think also if you work on something like Teen’s Key, do people also think that “Oh, yeah, are you a teenager, are you still in high school, are you a student”.
Bowie Lam 39:25
Yeah, like, especially as Asian, I think we have a younger look. And when I start the organization, I try to pretend I am not that age, like while I’m wearing, the makeup and the hair, but….
Belinda Esterhammer 39:41
They still see you. Yes, useless, useless tip because people still see your face and they are like Yeah, you’re 20, even if you are not.
Bowie Lam 39:51
And you are not like a well known person too. So it’s okay. Like when I look back, I think you just need to focus on what you are good at and then do a good work. And then people will see. And in the meantime, find your partnership, build partnership with people, like, meet with more people, let them understand. And the outcome will be good eventually.
Belinda Esterhammer 40:17
Yeah, I agree. What were some of the struggles that you had to encounter within the last few years?
Bowie Lam 40:23
I think still the same in sex education, especially for NGO, our income, mostly from donations, and from individual and some like foundations, like philanthropy. And not many of them agree that sex education is important.
Belinda Esterhammer 40:43
Okay.
Bowie Lam 40:44
Yeah, we heard that “Oh, sexual health struggles is common for teenagers, they will overcome it. So why should we invest in this project? Or the school will teach it, or the parents will teach to the teenager about sexual health, why should we support or why should we donate to this project”
However, lack of sex education is just a long lasting issue in Hong Kong. And during COVID, you can see the outcome like there are already three newborn baby abandoned in Hong Kong during the COVID. If you notice, one of them from the newspaper is from a 17 year old young girls. We know that because the school has been closed. The teenager if they get pregnant, they don’t have anyone can ask to help.
We got a call from some school when some students go back to school for last month, or last few months, the teachers find out they’re pregnant, but already 6 months or 7 months because they haven’t seen each other for a very long time. So they have no support for them. So COVID is just like a signal for us that the sex education is so important to them, and it relates to sexual violence, cyber bullying, and then unwanted pregnancy, STD, HIV, it relates to so many things. So this one, we want to do more in the future and let more people know we should talk this more positively with our young people. But we can see the challenges.
Belinda Esterhammer 42:42
Yeah, I also see that there’s so much pressure on girls in Hong Kong at a young age already from society and their families, like you don’t need to just have good grades, but you also need to look great, you need to be thin.
Bowie Lam 42:57
And you need to be well behaved women.
Belinda Esterhammer 43:00
Yeah and you need to be a well behaved woman. Exactly. Do you also work around mental health with girls?
Bowie Lam 43:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we find that it’s also very important for the young community to, for example, for the young woman we’ve worked with financial is one of the cause issues. Health is one core issue. And also mental health if you are not healthy psychologically, it’s very difficult for the girls to plan for their future.
Like if you’re depressed, if you are struggling with drugs problem, because you’re depressed. Then it is very difficult for you to tell yourself “Oh, you should think positively, you should find a job”. It’s very difficult and it’s not a very short term projects.
You need to talk with the girls very often for long term is have been very challenging for the last year because we can’t meet with the girls in person during COVID. Our social worker work very hard to call them to schedule online meetings with them. We think there’s still lack of in person interaction and it is still challenging, but we can see how the mental health has impacted girls in the past year
Belinda Esterhammer 44:26
Did you also see suicide rates increasing last year.
Bowie Lam 44:30
I don’t have the data now. But we have surveyed our community. There’s around 200 of them replied and we asked them to give a score for their stress level from one to 10, 10 is the maximum. Half of them is higher than 8/9. Because it is all interrelated because the financial situation. Because of the schools homeschooling situation, because of the future, so we can see that this, they are highly impacted now.
Belinda Esterhammer 45:11
Wow. Yeah, yeah. Always, if I look at before I moved to Hong Kong, you know, you just look at it and you think it’s such a world city, but then, you actually uncover all these layers of society.
And as we also talked about before, every fourth person in Hong Kong lives just above or underneath the poverty line already. So it’s really shocking. And it’s so great that you do the work that you do to really help people.
Because you’re so like niche in a sense that as a lot of struggles from like fundraising, right, because you say that the money goes into these initiatives. So somebody you know, for example, doesn’t want to support it. They’re like, I don’t want to give you the money. It’s, it’s not as easy as just like, Oh, I’m going to help young kids.
Bowie Lam 46:00
But we found that there’s a lot of donor actually, that are really open minded. Especially we have a lot of awesome women’s donor. They might be mothers or expat Hong Konger, but they, as the women themselves, they find it is really important to support young women. Yeah, they want them to be educated with sexual health and other gender equality as soon as possible. So we really appreciate that. We have such a nice community to support us.
Belinda Esterhammer 46:34
It’s really great the work that you’re doing. So if we speak about SDGs Teen’s Key fits under SDG 5, which is gender equality, which is basically about achieving gender equality, and empowering all women and girls. Can you tell us more about how Teen’s Key ties into this SDG 5?
Bowie Lam 46:54
Yes, most of our projects relate to it. Start from the beginning, the most vulnerable one, the sex workers, we found that if we don’t solve their problems, help them get away from the poverty line, help them become independent, it is really difficult for them to have the skills and ability to achieve what they want.
For us to gender equality is that no matter where you come from, no matter which class, you come from your background, if you are sex workers, if you are young mothers. Now, you can achieve your dream and do what you want to do.
So for Teen’s Key, we try to help them come overcome their difficulties, and then enrich their life skills. So they can do what they want to do. So same as the sex worker and the young mothers.
And then apart from that, across all programs, we try to give them the gender equality and also the gender awareness workshops. And from the personal counseling it is very, on the ground, from my observation, because it’s just like your everyday life.
For the young mothers like when they have a baby, do they think that they can go out for work? I remember one young mother told me that, oh, I become mother. Now. It’s my responsibility to take care of the baby. So my boyfriend can go to work to earn money. Even her boyfriend didn’t say that. No one told her not to go to work, but she will string herself to the myths about the genders role.
We think is not a healthy thing, even for the her boyfriend to because the boyfriend is also very young, like 17,18 He also has great stress, the responsibility to raise money to support the whole family. So for us gender equality is not only benefiting women, but also men too, because it’s about breaking the norms
So for us, we try to merge this to the everyday life as we teach. We tell these young mothers, it’s not only your boyfriend responsibility. As a family, you both have certain responsibilities. You can discuss again, how to spread the word of taking care of babies, or do you want to take some part time job to help your boyfriend to so there is a lesson about gender equality, as it merges in the girls everyday life.
Belinda Esterhammer 49:45
Why should we all care more about SDGs? Or what can we as an individual do more around it?
Bowie Lam 49:52
Yeah. This is a very important question because SDGs for most people, it sounds like very far away. But actually I think it’s very good for the whole world to have a united goal, even if for now we can only contribute a bit , but we also have a goal to look at.
So I think it’s a very good benchmark for us to review our policy, our work as an NGO, and also as a normal person. Do you teach your kids about gender equality? Or how you talk to your girls, “you have to be well behaved, you have to become a good housewife in the future”. So as an individual, I think we also have to reflect on ourselves and do we restrain ourselves with the gender traditional gender role? Or can we learn more to listen to different kinds of women stories, to inspire yourself about how to become a more gender equal society?
Belinda Esterhammer 50:59
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today with me before I let you go, you have to go through the Quick Fire Round
Who inspires you in a way they tackle the Sustainable Development Goals?
Bowie Lam 51:16
Malala.
Belinda Esterhammer 51:17
Why does she inspire you?
Bowie Lam 51:19
Because from her cultural background, it’s really difficult to teach people about gender equality, but she does so well now and even established her whole own philanthropy fund called Malala fund.
Belinda Esterhammer 51:33
What could everyone do to make the world a better place?
Bowie Lam 51:36
Reflect on yourself everyday: did you do enough for the world today, and then do better for the next day.
Belinda Esterhammer 51:44
Making an impact means…
Bowie Lam 51:46
Making an impact to me means do better work at my organization every day
Belinda Esterhammer 51:53
Thank you so much Bowie. Cou please, now the important part, share where can people actually find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Bowie Lam 52:01
Yeah, you can search Teen’s Key at Facebook and also you can send an email to us. Our email is info@teenskey.org
Belinda Esterhammer 52:12
And what’s your website?
Bowie Lam 52:14
www.teenskey.org
Belinda Esterhammer 52:18
So yeah, if you want to get in touch with Bowie and Teen’s Key find them on the website. She also has all the resources there. You can also find all the resources in the show notes. So I will link to everything we discussed about but I hope this was really educational also, for you. I learned a lot. Thank you so much Bowie
Bowie Lam 52:36
You are welcome.
Belinda Esterhammer 52:37
And also, um, call to action. If there’s anything you would love for our listeners to do, how can they actually help you?
Bowie Lam 52:44
Yes, we really want to do launch campaign for teenage sexual health education this year, but we still lack resources. We are doing fundraising currently, our goal is to host a call center for all teenagers that have a sexual health crisis. So if you’re interested, just talk to us and donate and support us.
Belinda Esterhammer 53:10
Thank you much.
Bowie Lam 53:11
You’re welcome. Thank you.
Regina Larko 53:14
Wow, what a conversation. I learned so much. And I want to encourage you to get in touch with Bowie and the team at Teen’s Key if you feel inspired by her story, what I am sure you are. Find them over at www.teenskey.org
You know, one thing that is so incredibly encouraging on this hashtag impact journey that we have been on for four years, is that we get to connect with all these brilliant, innovative, hardworking individuals that show up for making an impact every single day. Bowie said it so well. All our contributions on an individual level count. They’re really important so we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
This season we also invite you to share your impact story, because we’re sure that you make an impact in your own individual ways. Let us know how. Reach out to us at www.hashtagimpact.com/story There you find a storytelling guide so you can just like our guests, share your stories in the most intimate way so that it truly resonates with the listeners that are tuning in here. Tell your story. So it truly makes an impact. We got you. Thank you so much for listening today. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Get in touch with Bowie
- Official Website of Teen’s Key
Helpful resources to educate yourself on the Sustainable Development Goals
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