Youth Day, part of China’s ‘Golden Week’ is celebrated on May 4th, every year since 1949. Triggered by the May 4th 1919 mass youth demonstrations which began the national liberation movement in China, Youth Day is now celebrated as a homage to this event, whereby youth-led rallies, celebrations, performances and parades take to the streets of China.

Fitting, then that the Hong Kong Rugby Union Community Foundation had an equally busy day last Saturday, filled with a number of youth-based projects, activities and plenty of fun to mark the celebrations.

First up, the annual Po Leung Kuk Touch Rugby Fun Day at Tin Shui Wai. This year saw a record number of primary schools taking part, showing off the rugby skills they had been honing as part of the HKRUCF’s ‘Tackling Life’ programme. We often get asked at the Community Foundation, what do we deem ‘successful’ when evaluating these programmes? Tackling Life in particular became a highlight this year, as three of Po Leung Kuk’s alumni’s from the PLK Siu Hon Sum Primary School were this year selected to represent Hong Kong at the Touch Rugby World Cup 2019 in Malaysia – a palpable indicator of success, we’re sure you’ll agree!

 Po Leung Kuk Chairman CN MA presenting prizes at the Tackling Life Rugby Competition

Secondly, Saturday 4th May marked the final session of our Bridging Divides with EY programme, a specialist rugby training course with help from PeacePlayers International, developed to build common ground between disparate communities. This particular session was aimed to encourage friendships and understandings between children from Hong Kong and the Mainland, pairing 30 students from Songgang Experimental School in Shenzhen, with Ng Yuk Secondary School in Hong Kong. The day was centred around a range of team building exercises and games, based on both rugby and non-rugby (at one point the students were rock climbing!) formats, finishing with a friendly mixed game of Touch Rugby. Many thanks to EY for the support of this programme, and we look forward to continuing next season. 

Third was another annual fun day, in the form of the LCSD Easy Sports Tournament, a Primary School Touch Rugby programme, which took place at Po Kong Village in Wong Tai Sin. The day involved an impressive 350 boys and 160 girls from 34 different Primary Schools making up 36 boys and 16 girls teams.

Finally, to Happy Valley, where we celebrated a momentous occasion for one of our oldest HKRUCF programmes, Deaf Rugby.  For many seasons now, qualified coaches from the HKRU have been leading Friday evening rugby sessions for all members of the deaf community; this training and team development experienced another highlight last year when they attended the Deaf Rugby World Cup in Australia. Showcasing the aim for sustainability in these programmes, the participants of these sessions have now become qualified coaches themselves, and have just delivered a 6 week course with youngsters from the Hong Kong Society for the Deaf. This is the first time our Deaf Rugby senior members have run sessions for the youngsters, and it proved a great success seeing over 30 students complete the 6 week course. Thanks as always goes out to our valued sponsors, Standard Chartered, who joined us to celebrate the occasion and to mark their 10th year of sponsorship. We also give thanks to Friends of Asia, the Official Charity Partner of the HKRUCF who joined Standard Chartered in a certificate presentation ceremony at the end of the session.

30 students from the Hong Kong Society for the Deaf receiving their certificates of Touch Rugby course completion

Assembling all these programmes on Youth Day is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the great work of the Hong Kong Rugby Union Community Foundation not only on this day, but day-in-day-out, as our team work tirelessly in using the power of sport to positively impact the lives of youngsters throughout the local community.

We thank all our staff, sponsors and partners for their continued support, and look forward to seeing what the rest of 2019 has to bring for the Foundation! 

Click here to visit HKRUCF page