Partnership for youth
Caspar Tsui Secretary for Home Affairs
Y
oung people in Hong Kong are facing many challenges. Among them are education, careers and upward mobility. The Government is committed to gearing up an array of targeted measures to meet their needs and to establish effective channels to communicate with them.
Youth development is one of the priorities of the currentterm Government. We hope to create room for young people to realize their dreams. We also strive to address young people’s concerns about education, careers and home ownership, while encouraging their participation in politics and engagement in public policy discussion and debate. The aim is to enable the younger generation to see hope and opportunities for upward mobility and to nurture them as responsible leaders of tomorrow’s Hong Kong, equipped with a positive outlook on life, a commitment to society, a sense of national identity, a love for Hong Kong and an international perspective.
To achieve our common goals in youth development, the Government relies upon and attaches utmost importance to working closely with our partners without whom many of our youth development initiatives would not have been possible. Taking the Youth Hostel Scheme as an example, it is premised upon placing the use of spare development capacity into the hands of NGOs which can build youth hostels, thereby giving young tenants an experience of independent living at concessionary rents and saving to realize their aspirations. I am delighted to note that the scheme has begun to bear fruit: PH2, the first-ever project under the scheme, undertaken by the
15