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A total of 195 young people today (May 19) were commended at the Bronze Award Presentation Ceremony of the Hong Kong Award for Young People (HKAYP) Police Operating Authority (POA) for their outstanding performance.
They received their bronze award certificates from the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations), Mr Tang Kam-moon, and the Chairman of HKAYP Award Council, Mr Rock Chen, at the Police Sports and Recreation Club.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Tang pointed out that the HKAYP encouraged young people to achieve whole-person development through a unique incentive scheme recognised by the society. The Award provided young people with chances of facing challenges and opportunities with a view to encouraging them to spend their leisure time in a constructive way, setting and achieving their personal goals, and to having a better understanding of themselves and the community.
He also expressed gratitude to the contribution of the volunteer instructors. Most of them are serving or retired police officers.
Meanwhile, Mr Chen gave a special token of appreciation to the Force for active engagement in the scheme over the years. He said HKAYP served as a big family including participants and volunteers. Each of them played their roles to contribute to Hong Kong. The ˇ§AYP Networkˇ¨ was established in echo with the 50th Anniversary of HKAYP last year, aiming to create a strong bonding amongst the stakeholders and to foster future development of HKAYP.
In the past year, some 5 000 young people participated in over 20 training courses organised by the POA. This resulted in 15 gold awardees, 25 silver awardees and today's 195 bronze award recipients.
The HKAYP scheme aims at building up young people's confidence and developing their potentials. Participants aged between 14 and 25 will be awarded gold, silver or bronze awards after joining activities specified under the skills, service, expedition, physical recreation and residential project sections.
The Police first organised HKAYP (formerly called The Duke of Edinburgh's Award) activities at the Police Cadet School in 1973 and established the Hong Kong Police Operating Authority in 1979, which is one of the 17 operating authorities of the scheme, to coordinate the relevant activities. Police Public Relations Branch took over the programme in 2006.
Police Report No. 157
Ends/Saturday, May 19, 2012
Issued at HKT 13:33
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