Prof. Naubahar SHARIF Received HK$2 Million Funding to Conduct a Mental Health Project Targeting Hong Kong’s Ethnic Minority Communities

Prof. Naubahar SHARIF, Professor and Acting Head of the Division of Public Policy (PPOL), has successfully obtained HK$2 million worth of funding from the HKSAR Government’s Mental Health Initiatives Funding Scheme for the 24-month project entitled “Preparing and Deploying Ethnic Minority Lay Leaders to Promote Mental Well-Being Among Hong Kong’s Major Ethnic Minority Communities”.

Although awareness of mental health has been rising in Hong Kong in recent years, mental health still remains a relatively undiscovered topic in Hong Kong, especially among Hong Kong's ethnic minorities, not least because of cultural differences, communication gaps, language barriers, and lack of proper and well-established channels for minority groups to director their concerns.

In view of the above, Prof. SHARIF has initiated this new project to help promote mental health awareness among Hong Kong's major ethnic minorities. The project will firstly focus on identifying respected community members who may potentially serve as 'lay leaders' in terms of mental health first aid education. After identifying a select group of such prospective 'lay leaders', a series of mental health first-aid training activities will be arranged for them. Armed with the knowledge they obtain through such training, these lay leaders will disseminate the knowledge to their community members through online and in-person seminars and dialogue sessions.

This project will be among the first to address mental health challenges faced by Hong Kong’s ethnic minority communities, as well as pioneer the "lay-leader" model in promoting awareness regarding mental health issues among often-overlooked ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.