The University of Hong Kong on Thursday held a symposium for local and overseas experts to discuss how to restore hope for Sichuan earthquake survivors.

After the disastrous earthquake happened in Sichuan of Chinese Mainland on May 12, many volunteers from Hong Kong went there to provide relief of different kinds for the survivors. Professor in Health and Social Work Cecilia Chan Lai-wan from the University of Hong Kong was one of them.

Speaking at the one-day symposium on Thursday, Chan said that disasters victims would easily feel being useless as they have to rely on relief. Therefore, it would be important to de-victimize them and let them live a dignified life.

"Any distracting activity will be useful such as art work and needle work, which can give them a sense of achievement," Chan said, putting them into groups to produce art works can make them feel the togetherness, and besides, people were able to get money by selling their works, which in turn, can restore hope in their lives.

Children and adolescent need a lot of physical activities to keep them strong and healthy, Chan said. The University's relief team hence designed health physical games and sports for children from the disastrous areas to play so as to recreate joy for them.

In the long term, Chan said that building up a social services network, renewing goals and motivation, as well as instilling hope among the survivors are important elements in assisting the reconstruction of the disastrous areas.

Timothy Sim Boon-wee, Assistant Professor of the Department of Applied Social Science, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, also went to Sichuan earlier with a voluntary team organized by his university for the relief work.

"We were focusing on play rather than counseling," Sim said at the symposium. They used games to replace traditional counseling method, which involves talking when facing children and they have been documenting their experience as a reference for future projects.

Sim agreed that getting the survivors to work together could assist in soothing their emotions by allowing them to feel that they could play a part in community building.

Also a speaker at the symposium, Joshua Miller, Professor of School of Social Work, Smith College, the United States, said, " ignore or suppress negative emotion is not healthy."

Sharing the same view with other speakers, Miller said that, though might be tearful, it would enable victims a chance to express their deep and fearful feelings by narrating their story which would be a useful therapy for their emotion.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)