Social Mission
KELY Support Group (KELY) is a Hong Kong-based non-profit organisation whose mission since 1991 is to equip young people with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities needed to support themselves and each other. We envision a world where young people are empowered to reach their full potential.
Business Model
We collaborate with schools and other community partners to offer programmes to Chinese- and English-speaking youth including those from Ethnic Minority backgrounds, between the ages of 14 and 24 around our three core focus areas: Drug and Alcohol Awareness, Mental Well Being, and Positive Youth Development.
Our programmes range from skills building and knowledge based training workshops to experiential learning opportunities for groups of students across all core focus areas of our work.
Different programmes in our portfolio are financially supported by the following means:
- Government-subsidised Grants
- Corporate and Family Foundations Grants
- School donations
- General donations
Founding Team
In the early ‘90s, a group of youth who grew up in Hong Kong started a movement of peer support when they found a lack of support services that met their needs. They started informal support groups to allow peers to chat about what was troubling them, encouraged each other in their pursuit of wellbeing, and those who fell into drug and alcohol abuse went to local schools to share about their personal journeys of recovery as a prevention education initiative. Generous benefactors and philanthropists including Mrs Ann Marden and several Rotarians saw the innovation and passion among these youth and financially supported it to become officially established as a charity in Hong Kong to serve young people through non-judgemental peer support. Today, our Board Emeritus Chair, Mr Andrew Jones, still serves on our Board.
Social Impact
Youth in HK are continually facing a myriad of challenges during their key developmental years. With each generation comes different challenges. We have seen our programmes over the last 28 years impacting young people in making positive choices for their life and later on in their careers as well.
In the last year, we worked with 100 school partners across Hong Kong, reaching over 30,000 young people through our programmes and outreach. Some of our other impacts include:
- From our drugs & alcohol awareness workshops, 82% of participants indicated that they had learned strategies for resisting peer pressure related to drugs.
- 75% of peer supporters trained felt more confident in promoting a positive influence on fellow students
Proposed Project for Students
- Exploring a business model for scaling up across our Positive Youth Development offerings.
- Market research and analysis of our existing programme models to understand where technology or other platforms can help to increase operational efficiency.
- Propose new models of service delivery that would be able to generate revenues to support innovation and research around our work.