URA encourages young people to explore urban renewal in perspectives through performing art

The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) has in the 2015/16 academic year organised a series of learning and outreach programmes to inspire young people to approach urban renewal from different perspectives. The finale of secondary school drama competition cum gala show of the roving drama workshops for primary school students was held at the Youth Square, Chai Wan on 18 March (Friday) with nearly 400 teachers and students participating.

The 2015/16 secondary school drama competition, which was in its 6^th year, aimed to encourage students to express their creative ideas for achieving a sustainable urban renewal and a better living environment in old districts. A series of workshops and visits to the URA's projects were arranged by the URA, Development Bureau's Energizing Kowloon East Office and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, to equip the shortlisted teams with better understanding of the urban renewal, as well as to enhance their stage production and acting skills.

Lingnan Secondary School, St Francis' Canossian College, Chiu Lut Sau Memorial Secondary School and Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Yau Tze Tin Memorial College were the four shortlisted teams entering into the finals. These teams have demonstrated a high quality of play and good understanding of urban renewal issues.

Representatives of the URA, Development Bureau's Energizing Kowloon East Office, Hong Kong Education City and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre formed the judging panel and the list of winners is shown in the Annex.

In this school year, the URA continued to partner with Hong Kong Repertory Theatre in the third consecutive year to launch the six-month roving drama workshops in primary schools to promote the URA's redevelopment and rehabilitation efforts though interactive activities while providing a platform for these students to think and express their views. Some 3,000 students participated in 30 sessions of workshops, of which more than 10 of the participated students joined the gala show on 18 March.

Speaking at the finale event, Non-Executive Director of the URA Board, Dr Billy Mak, said, "The URA is committed to promoting urban renewal among the young people through a wide range of interactive learning and outreach activities so as to inspire them to explore the urban renewal issues for better understanding, more thinking and expressing their views.  We hope the students can get benefits by participating in these activities."

Chiu Lut Sau Memorial Secondary School had outstanding performance and was awarded the winner of the competition. The student representative Tam Ching said, "This competition united us to overcome the challenges of preparing the performance in just a few weeks' time.  The biggest prize for us was our friendship."  Supporting the students in this competition, Principal Kong Yick-cheong said, "We found this competition very meaningful as it encouraged the students to take initiative to learn about urban renewal through the drama performance."

Starting from 24 March (Thursday), a month-long exhibition featuring the highlights of the school activities will be displayed for public viewing at the 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).

"Bling Bling for Urban Renewal" Drama Competition

Results

 (ENDS)