Young people inspired and expressed their “Ideal Smart City” through microfilm and drama

The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) continued this year with a series of interactive learning and outreach programmes for young people to inspire them to approach and understand urban renewal from different perspectives.  To conclude the URA's 2016/17 school programmes, a finale event was held for the secondary school microfilm and drama competitions cum gala show of the roving drama workshops for the primary schools at the Youth Square in Chai Wan yesterday (24 March), with about 400 students participating. 

With the theme of "Urban Renewal Goes Smart: Your Ideal Smart City", this year's school programmes aimed at encouraging students to express their aspirations for bringing smart elements into urban regeneration either through their creative use of camera lenses or drama performances. 

A series of workshops for the participants of both microfilm and drama competitions were arranged by the URA in collaboration with the supporting organisations to equip the students with a better understanding of the concept of smart city and the skills in acting, stage production,and microfilm production.  These supporting organisations are the Energizing Kowloon East Office of Development Bureau, Planning Department, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Jockey Club Media 21 of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, Hong Kong Education City, Hong Kong Association of Youth Development and Hong Kong Film Art Association. 

Speaking at the finale event, Managing Director of the URA, Ir Wai Chi-sing, said: "If we want to strengthen Hong Kong's competitive edge and enhance the living standard to ensure sustainable development, we need to incorporate the concept of smart city into our urban planning.  I encourage young people to keep learning new and different knowledge and broaden their horizon in order to stimulate new thinking.  The URA will continue to organise more diverse and interactive experiential learning opportunities for young people, helping them to explore more about the development of urban regeneration." 

Pui Kiu College was awarded the Winner and the Best Screenplay of the 2016/17 Microfilm Competition for its excellent skills in filming and editing, artistic presentation, as well as its creativity in delivering the story concept and approach. The student representative, Horace Chan, said after receiving the award: "Through taking part in this competition, we have come to learn and care more about the problems faced by our community.  We have also become more proactive to find a solution in order to create a better future." 

For the 2016/17 Drama Competition, five school teams which entered into the final competition included The ELCHK Yuen Long Lutheran Secondary School, The Hong Kong Management Association HKMA K S Lo College, The Hong Kong Sze Yap Commercial and Industrial Association, HKSYCIA Wong Tai Shan Memorial College, PLK Tong Nai Kan Junior Secondary College and Queen Elizabeth School.  PLK Tong Nai Kan Junior Secondary College was awarded the Winner for its outstanding performance in its play titled "不要只顧自己". The student representative, Ruby Law, said, "This drama competition has given us an opportunity to understand what smart city is about and learn the smartest way for waste disposal which inspired us to create the concept of vacuum waste disposal for the play. I hope this disposal method will someday come into existence in Hong Kong." 

In this school year, the URA also collaborated with Channel Creation Educational Theatre to run a total of 30 roving drama workshops in 27 primary and secondary schools to encourage students to express and discuss their views about urban renewal and smart city through participating in a series of interactive performing art activities.  More than 4,600 students joined the workshops, among whom more than a dozen of the students joined the gala show on 24 March. 

The information and photos of the drama and microfilm competition are available at the UREC website (www.urec.org.hk) and Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/UrbanRenewalExplorationCentre).

Results of "Your Ideal Smart City" Drama Competition

Results of "Your Ideal Smart City" Microfilm Competition

(ENDS)