“The trouble will not go away after dancing, the problem still exists, but I like the feeling when dancing.” The road ahead seems difficult to Mandy, but after being exposed to dancing, she knows there is still a way out.
A Stable Life to Develop Personal Interests
High conflict disputes often occur in Mandy’s family, and she started to stay at ECH since she was in Form 2. “This is like my second home, providing a stable environment for living.” Mandy said. Later, she had a chance to attend church and start to learn breakdance as well. With encouragement from the instructor, she participated in a dancing competition. She struggled at the beginning because she had learnt the dancing in a short period and was lack of experience and confidence. But, she finally decided to take her first step of trying.
Competition Journey
In 2018, she participated in the Hong Kong Trial Tournament and came to the fore, and won a seat to participate the “Youth Olympic Street Dance Asian Qualification Tournament” which was held in Taiwan. Through selection of the overseas candidates (5 male and 5 female candidates from each country to enter the screening competition and the top 16 to be selected), she was qualified for participating the “WDSF World Youth Breakdance Championship” Tournament held in Japan. Although she failed to advance further, given the opportunity going abroad with such valuable experience, her self-affirmation had been lasting.
When she attended this dancing competition in Taiwan, she was studying at Form 4 and had to prepare for DSE. She had to manage and allocate time for both her studies and dance practice, which made Mandy so exhausted. With God’s help and with prayers from brothers and sisters together, she was selected for the competition thankfully. When she went to Japan for competition in the next year, she had to take 8-10 days leave from school. The school did not disapprove her leave; however, no support was shown. Mandy had faced great pressure when she had to catch up with her studies after competition, she felt so exhausted physically and mentally. Though she failed to win at last, she was not disappointed because she had tried her best.
Searching for Goal
Mandy had been lack of motivation to accomplish anything and her academic results had been unsatisfactory, but after dancing, she had gradual improvement and learned self-discipline. How did she get through it? “It might be willpower!” Mandy said. In order to balance both homework and dance practice, she had to minimize her entertainment time. With brothers’ and sisters’ prayers, she gained strength and confidence overcoming the difficulties.
Mandy knows that dancing is just for hobbies and relaxing and she will not develop it into a career as dancing is very professional indeed. Her goal is set to become a social worker and she wants to help people with similar background. The first social worker who she met in primary school was her role model. She thought her love and concern has gone beyond the scope of a social worker. From that moment, she had been studying hard as she wanted to reach her goal as social worker. She was grateful that she could admit to study Social Work after DSE and move towards the goal.
Sincere Thanks
Mandy now exudes a humble self-confidence. She was so grateful she could stay in the Evangel Children’s Home. Here she met Loretta, the counselor who taught her how to manage her emotions and how to find the direction of her life. The subsidy for tutorials really helped her a lot in studying and made her feeling a bit more secured when facing loads of studies. She was still in dilemma sometimes, she could still sustain with the warmth in her heart.
Mandy grew up under non-favorable environment; she could choose to be negatives, to give up, to complain, or to go wrong… pick up any other justified excuses for herself. However, she chose to stay positive and to move towards her goal silently.
Even though she has got experience and good results in dancing, she only gives herself 4.5 points (out of 10 points). She kept herself humble as she knew there are lots of people perform better than her. She admitted she did not gain enough confidence, but she does not feel inferior at all. She learnt how to be grateful and thankful to have supporters’ companion.
