This is how Home Kong wraps Christmas! Thanks to all of Home Kong Kitchen‘s volunteers for spreading much needed festive cheer to the most vulnerable in the form of staple foods, clothing, toys and delectable sweet treats! Special shout out to Deepa Tolani for loaning me her driver yesterday and making our festive run for the migrant women of Bethune House so pleasurable. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Christmas Message from the Migrant Women of Bethune House

It’s a wrap! Finito! Done! Thanks to the magnificent Resolve Foundation for the opportunity to serve as a mentor on this year’s fellowship. It’s been a wild ride and I have loved every minute of it. Most of all, thank you for matching me as a mentor with the dynamo of creativity and enthusiasm that is Eny Bawse! The fellowship may have ended, but our collaborations are only just getting started! I could not be prouder of Eny for all she has achieved and all that I know she will go on to achieve with her talent, wit, drive and inspired Self-Love Cupid project.

To support Resolve‘s work empowering community leaders to bring about social change, click here!

Thank you to everyone who braved the filthy weather and turned down Thanksgiving to show up at Mind HK‘s poetry event Poetry for Mental Health: The Healing Power of Words in SoHo last night! The event was part of a week-long exhibition More Than A Label: I Was. I Am. I Will Be. I felt quite emotional after reading my poem, listening to the stories of the two other poets, the incredible Vish and Derek, and chatting about the stigma of mental illness in Hong Kong. There was an overwhelming amount of love in the air at the intimate event at the uber-cute gallery on Lyndhurst Street. I can’t wait for the next one!

Thanks to Mind for the endless encouragement, opportunity to read, and for curating such a powerful exhibition of letters and artwork. I loved reading every single one of the letters on display and the psychedelic 3D artwork of Mind HK ambassadors’ brains! Thanks especially to Odile for emceeing and sharing her own insightful observations. If you’ve not already seen it, you’ve still got a chance! The exhibition is open until Monday.

#More Than A Label #Poetry for Mental Health: The Healing Power of Words #I Was. I Am. I Will Be

I will be reading one of my strange experimental poems at a poetry event organised by Mind HK in Central Nov 24! The Healing Power of Words is part of an exhibition of art and letters by Mind HK ambassadors to celebrate the first anniversary of the charity’s More Than A Label anti-stigma campaign. Please join me and support Mind! I’m not really a poet but I will be pretending to be one by shouting and wearing a hat.

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-for-mental-health-the-healing-power-of-words-tickets-467482271057

Excited to be taking part in mental health charity Mind HK‘s exhibition of art, poetry and letters de-stigmatising mental health. The exhibition is a celebration of the first anniversary of the charity’s More Than A Label campaign and the theme is ‘I Was. I Am. I Will Be‘. I was, I am and I will be contributing a letter to my younger self, which will be among the many letters and artwork by Mind HK ambassadors on display. Please support! The exhibition is free to attend!

The exhibition will be held at 5, Sun Fung Mansion, 52-60 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong Nov 21-28. Details below!

https://www.morethanalabelhk.com/event-details/more-than-a-label-i-was-i-am-i-will-be

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3199782/5-wellness-events-hong-kong-november-promote-fitness-yoga-mental-health-and-mens-well-being

Happy to be taking part in Mind HK‘s anti-stigma campaign More Than A Label‘s first anniversary event; ‘More Than A Label: I Was, I Am, I Will Be‘, an exhibition of art, poetry and letters by Mind HK ambassadors aimed at de-stigmatising mental health, which will be open to the public Nov 21 – Nov 28. The exhibition will be held at 5, Sun Fung Mansion, 52-60 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong Nov 21-28. More details soon!

Some of my previous ‘rants’ about mental health!

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3181151/im-bipolar-and-seeing-word-headlines-divided

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3120634/bipolar-disorder-sufferers-and-medical-experts-share-how

https://themighty.com/topic/bipolar-disorder/mania-bipolar-disorder-sleepwalking

Congratulations Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge on reaching your 36th Anniversary! Thank you for inviting me to celebrate with you and the surprise certificate (which I share with everybody in my small but perfectly formed team at Home Kong Kitchen). The work Bethune House and the Mission for Migrant Workers does protecting the human rights and dignity of migrants in Hong Kong is humbling. Thank you for the opportunity to serve with loaves of bread. To learn more about and support Bethune House’s awe-inspiring work, click here!

I am bouncing off satellites to have been ‘matched’ as a mentor with dynamo of positive energy Eny Bawse by the Resolve Foundation! I met Eny for the first time this week and will be mentoring her on her journey with Resolve’s 2022 fellowship program and her incredible Self Love Cupid project. When that’s over, I am really hoping Eny will mentor me.

Really inspired attending HKU’s Bipolar Ambition Exhibition last week featuring the work of two Bipolar Hong Kong and Mental Ideas artists – the super-talented Coby Legans and Juliana Kung!!! Coby has been one of Bipolar HK’s longest and most giving members, although we did recently lose her to Perth, Australia, where she’s training to be a mental health counsellor, and Juliana has shared her artwork with Mental Ideas and designed Home Kong Kitchen‘s stunning emblem!

It takes a lot of courage putting yourself out there as a bipolar artist in order to raise awareness and fight the stigma associated with the condition and so hats off to Coby, Juliana, and all the other incredible artists who exhibited their artwork, some of whom we were lucky enough to hang out with! The sky at HKU was almost as memorable as the artwork, too, just as a typhoon came rolling in…

Home Kong Kitchen is TWO YEARS OLD!!! That’s two whole years of flour bombing, bread lugging, hand sanitising, mask (s)wearing, restriction dodging, loophole sleuthing and priceless moments shared with HKK volunteers and the beautiful humans we help out! Thanks for the memories, Homekongers! Here’s to many more birthdays to come! 🥳