Our editors have worked together to display different pieces from the ICHK community about Mental Health and Wellbeing. In addition to the writing from our talented writers, this edition also includes videos, posters and art displays that showcase the diverse variety of work created by the ICHK community.

Our editors:

Charlotte Cheung, Charmaine Pilard, Cherie Chan, Daisy Davies, Lucia Pareja Lopez.

Welcome to the sixth edition of ICHK's student-published magazine.

The topic for this issue is Mental Health and Wellbeing. When dealing with tough times like these, understanding our mental headspace is extremely important. Staying inside and leaving our normal routines is something abnormal. We believe that learning about wellbeing and understanding ourselves more will help us adapt to these changes and continue the uphill battle to battling COVID-19.

Raising awareness for this issue and looking at it from many different perspectives can help us develop a better understanding of it and help the people around us too. Openly talking about it can also lead to deeper conversations and discussions for this topic which affects all of us in today’s society.

In this edition, we look at the importance of mental health, personal experiences with wellbeing, and how technologies can help us during this time period. We are also proud to share the Shigakogen snow sports trip video and the Year 13 Graduation Speeches.

Pieces in this issue fall under the categories of Introduction to Mental Health and Wellbeing, Personal Experiences, Letters to Future Self, Technologies for Coping and COVID-19 themed Creative Writing. It will also feature the Shigakogen Snow Sports Video, a wonderful Shark Story Illustration and the Year 13 Graduation Speeches.

Thank you for reading our magazine and showing awareness of Mental Health and Wellbeing. We hope that you’ll be back for future editions.

The INSIGHT team did an interview about mental health with the ICHK Counselling team. Members of the team include Ms Loges, Ms Chan and Ms Christy. In the interview, topics of stress, the importance of mental health and ICHK's view on Mental Health were covered. The questions in the interview are listed below:

• What are some ways that students can deal with stress?

• What ways does ICHK help students cope with stress?

• Why is it important for people to take care of their mental health and how can it benefit their lives?

• Is stress always a bad thing? Can it have benefits?

• How is ICHK different from other school’s when understanding and improving the mental health of students?

• Why do you think the topic of mental health has only been brought to the public eye in the last couple of years?

We would like to express our sincere appreciation for their time.

For more information on tips for how to manage stress and a possible way to manage stress at home, please visit the following links.

Strategies for students to manage stress:

https://www.mind.org.hk/conflict-and-mental-health-tips/

A possible way to manage stress at home - Free Online Yoga Program:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/free-online-accessible-yoga-practice-chair-wheelchair-friendly-sat-20-june-2020-tickets-106719946232?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

COVID-19 has affected many people in different ways, particularly our Year 11's and 13's as their exams have been cancelled. The INSIGHT team sent out a google form to the affected group for their opinions and personal thoughts on how their exams have been influenced by the coronavirus.

We would like to thank Bethan Eyre, Eunis Yeung, Daniel Yum, and Serena Ng for their responses.

Click this link to read different answers from these students as well as the questions that were asked.

In Mr Rees’ English class, students wrote some letters to their future self. Xanel Cheah from 7.1, Henry Wang from 8.2, Rachel Chan from 8.2, Harry Wong from 10.3 and an anonymous submitter talked about their thoughts and feelings during the school closure due to COVID-19. They mentioned some of the activities they did and how they learned to cope in these unusual times.

Please read the pieces below.

"Dear future me,

Now, with the insight I’ve gained after lockdown, I have realised that my life before the coronavirus was underwhelming.

Before quarantine, I was regularly bored. Everything that I had once found fun had begun to fade in colour. I had no drive to finish tasks, nothing really seemed to matter enough for me to care. There was a formula to each day that I had grown too tired to even object to: wake up, go to school, get home, waste time, sleep. It was completely bland, and, as strange as it may seem, I was fine with that. Despite how absolutely banal it sounds looking back, I didn’t realise that there was anything especially wrong. Then the lockdown began."

Read the full piece here.

After two years of hard work, the Year 11s had their work displayed in the PA room for the annual Year 11 art exhibition. Some artwork from the Year 12 IB art students was also displayed. The work demonstrates the great creative minds of ICHK art students. We would like to congratulate these students for their display.

Please take a moment from reading our magazine’s pieces to relax and enjoy their creative work here.

COVID-19 has, without doubt, presented us all with many new challenges. In HT, students have taken the time to reflect on the technologies that have served them most well during their off-campus learning. Through the lens of Human Tech, students have considered the range of strategies and tools that have helped to keep their well-being in check and navigate these difficult times.

These are the works of Austin Lai, Nathalie Kung, Kouki Cheng, Isaac Cheung, Abbie Kong

Gladys Kwok and Omar Prete.

Please read the pieces below.

Many great artists from the Renaissance-era and beyond created their masterpieces while living under conditions of quarantine. Shakespeare allegedly produced King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra and Macbeth in a single year after finding himself trapped inside. Titian produced an enormous triptych to appease an angry God as plague tore through Renaissance Italy. It sadly did not save him and his son, though...:(

Here, a couple of Y10 IGCSE English students captured their experiences during the first few weeks of self-isolation through creative writing...

The student representatives from Year 13, Katie and Wesley, wrote a thank you speech to all the teachers at ICHK and the memories they created at this school. This is a heartfelt yet entertaining speech that will be remembered by all members of this graduating class. This graduation was held under unusual circumstances and reading this speech can help the school community understand the challenges they faced during school closure and IB in general.

Read the speech here.

Tiffany Fu and Yiling Tang have written a wonderful piece about how to spend your summer in Hong Kong. They mention various familiar and yet overlooked activities as well as some quick enjoyable ones. Read their piece and enjoy Hong Kong’s diversity to the fullest.

Read the piece here.