URA encourages young people to explore urban renewal through performing arts

The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) has continued this year to organise a series of interactive and interesting school programmes to inspire the students to learn more about urban renewal.  A finale event to conclude this school year's programme has been held on 14 March at the Youth Square in Chai Wan with a gala show by primary students and the final of a drama competition by secondary school students, with about 400 people participating. 

The drama competition titled "What can we do for the old districts?" aims to encourage the students to explore the issues of old district through creative script writing and drama performance.  The four shortlisted teams have demonstrated a high quality of play and good
understanding of social issues. The drama competition was supported by Hong Kong Education City and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, which also hosted a workshop to share with the four shortlisted teams tips of acting and stage production prior to the final competition.  A docent tour to the old urban areas was also arranged by the URA to help the teams better prepared for the competition.  The list of winners is shown in the Annex.

In this school year, the URA also partnered with the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre to launch a roving drama workshop for 16 primary schools in eight old districts.  Nearly 2,000 students and teachers have participated in the roving drama workshops, which centred on the redevelopment and building rehabilitation.  Selected students from 14 primary schools joined a gala show on 14 March.

"Apart from organising school activities and competitions, the URA has collaborated with NGOs to bring the young people into the old districts for the first-hand experience.  During the past years, about 40,000 people have participated in the school events and community outreaching activities organised by the URA.  We also launched the 'UR Web Academy' and the mobile application 'UR City Fun'', with an aim to enhance the public understanding of URA's work and urban renewal issues," said Director (Corporate Communications) of the URA, Mr Lawrence Yau.

Starting from 26 March (Wednesday), a three-week long exhibition featuring the highlights of the school activities will be displayed for public viewing at the Oasis Gallery of the former Central Market building.  Information and photos of the activities are also available at the UREC website (www.urec.org.hk) and Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/UrbanRenewalExplorationCentre).

"What can we do for the old districts?" Drama Competition

Winners List 

 (ENDS)