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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, at the "PolyU Serves" Community Service Campaign Launching Ceremony cum Outstanding Service Project Award Presentation at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) today (February 9):
Professor (Timothy) Tong, Mr Lee (Jark-pui), Mr (Kennedy) Liu, Dr Ng (Tat-lun), Professor Walter (Yuen), Professor Angelina (Yuen), members of the (PolyU) Council, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
I am most pleased to join this doubly meaningful event, which comprises the launch of the "PolyU Serves" Community Service Campaign and the Outstanding Service Project Award Presentation Ceremony. Today's event forms part of the key activities celebrating the 75th anniversary of PolyU.
The PolyU Community Service Learning Programme, launched in 2004 and involving different disciplines in PolyU, has generated a number of excellent and worthy community support projects, benefiting over 490 000 needy people in our society.
The "PolyU Serves" Community Service Campaign goes one step further and seeks to more comprehensively engage PolyU students from various disciplines to organise sustainable projects to serve the community.
I applaud PolyU's decision to include service learning in the credit-bearing academic curriculum from 2012-13 onwards. I must say that I am impressed by the creativity, philosophy and passion behind this noble idea. To name just a few of your creative ideas, students in language studies will help polish the language skills of underprivileged children and new arrivals. Students in occupational therapy will provide much-needed advice to the needy in home and community settings. Engineering students will enhance the IT skills of ethnic minority groups. In a most ingenious and friendly way, "PolyU Serves" promotes students' better understanding of and interest in volunteer work whilst enabling them to put to good use their expertise and knowledge for the benefit of different disadvantaged groups.
In a similar vein, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government attaches much importance to the promotion of volunteer work. Allow me to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Agency for Volunteer Service (AVS) led by Mr Lee Jark-pui, who is present here today. The AVS is instrumental in promoting and sustaining the Volunteer Movement. On the Government's part, the Social Welfare Department has been promoting the Volunteer Movement since 1998. At the end of 2011, we had registered more than 982 300 volunteers and over 2 200 organisations in support of volunteer work. The total service hours recorded in 2010 exceeded 22 million hours. The PolyU Students' Union Social Service Group is among our Volunteer Movement Participating Organisations.
It is noteworthy that about 52 per cent of the registered volunteers, amounting to some 510 000, are aged under 25. I am sure that by launching "PolyU Serves", more young people will fuse the spirit of volunteering into their professional and academic lives and make the best use of their knowledge and skills to serve the community.
"PolyU Serves" is an impressive initiative in demonstrating how the academic sector could care for the community with creativity. With the concerted efforts of the Government, academia, non-governmental organisations and the business sector, I am sure we will make Hong Kong a more caring society. This is why the HKSAR Government has been proactively promoting tripartite partnership in recent years in building a fair, compassionate and cohesive community.
A notable example in this respect is the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF). Set up by the Government in 2002 with an allocation of $300 million, the Fund provides seed money to create social capital by fostering mutual support and assistance amongst people, developing cross-strata neighbourhood networks, and promoting community participation and cross-sectoral collaboration. So far, 238 projects have been approved under the CIIF and some 560 000 people have benefited. In his Budget Speech delivered last Wednesday, the Financial Secretary proposed to further inject $200 million into the Fund to deepen and strengthen social capital investment at the district level.
In closing, I would like to thank PolyU for your sterling contribution to building a better society by engaging your students to live up to your motto of "To learn and apply, for the benefit of mankind." I wish the "PolyU Serves" Community Service Campaign every success. Thank you.
Ends/Thursday, February 9, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:26
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