The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, today (March 9) officiated at the Child Development Fund (CDF) 10th Anniversary Ceremony and reviewed its achievements in the last decade. Over 800 children and their mentors and family members as well as representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and schools attended the ceremony.
Accompanied by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Dr Law Chi-kwong, and the Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare and Chairperson of the Steering Committee on the CDF, Ms Chang King-yiu, Mrs Lam joined members of the Steering Committee to host the launch ceremony for new project batches. The 37 new projects, comprising 27 seventh-batch projects operated by NGOs and 10 fifth-batch school-based projects, include three key components, namely personal development plans, mentorships and targeted savings, to help guide over 2 500 grassroots children and youths in total. Including the new projects, the CDF has so far launched 193 projects, bringing the cumulative number of participants to over 17 000.
In addition, Mrs Lam presented long service awards to volunteer mentors, project operators and supporting organisations at the ceremony to give recognition to their continued participation in and support for CDF projects in the last decade.
A graduation ceremony was also held for some 3 300 project graduates under fifth-batch projects operated by NGOs and second-batch school-based projects. Dr Law and Ms Chang delivered certificates of recognition to project operators, outstanding mentors, strategic partners and supporting organisations following their project completion. Awards of the "#Thank You Mentor" Video Contest in which graduates sent their regards to mentors via videos were presented. Graduates also staged music and magic performances and shared details of their experience in past activities at the graduation ceremony.
The CDF celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2018, which included a series of experiential programmes in collaboration with public and private organisations to broaden the horizons of grassroots children and youths. Programmes held include athletics training, a virtual reality game on money management, internships in information and communications technology, robotics workshops, simulation of working on board aircraft, and the 10th anniversary signature programme "Dream Cruises", which took grassroots children on a cruise journey.