SHYA visits Beijing to explore ways of enhancing Beijing and Hong Kong youth mutual development (with photos)
17.7.2023

The Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Miss Alice Mak, today (July 17) visited Beijing to explore ways of further enhancing youth mutual development, exchanges and collaboration between Beijing and Hong Kong. Accompanied by the Permanent Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Ms Shirley Lam, and the Deputy Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs (Home Affairs), Mr Nick Au Yeung, Miss Mak visited Hong Kong youths participating in finance-themed internship programmes in Beijing this morning. The programmes were organised by the Fin Society under the Funding Scheme for Youth Internship in the Mainland. In the afternoon, Miss Mak arrived at the Palace Museum to officiate at the inauguration ceremony of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Youth Internship Programme at Palace Museum. She visited workplaces of the interns and met with the Director of the Palace Museum, Dr Wang Xudong. Organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government's Home and Youth Affairs Bureau and co-organised by the Macao SAR Government and the Guangdong Youth Federation, the Programme was launched in 2017. The Programme, aiming at promoting young people's awareness of and sense of responsibility for Chinese history and cultural inheritance, has been well received by young people. Speaking at the ceremony, Miss Mak said that the Hong Kong SAR Government attaches great importance to youth development. After three years of the pandemic, the internship programme was restarted this summer, allowing a total of 16 Hong Kong young people to experience a six-week internship in the Palace Museum, which will strengthen their understanding of cultural relic restoration, exhibition planning, and ancient building repair, and expand their vision in culture and arts. She encouraged the interns to continue contributing to the future development of the country's cultural and museum industry, and to promote Hong Kong's development into an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange under the National 14th Five-Year Plan. Miss Mak and her team then met with the person-in-charge of the All-China Youth Federation (ACYF), Ms Wang Yi, and the secretary-general of the ACYF, Ms Liu Aiping, to exchange views on work, including helping Hong Kong youths integrate into the overall development of the country and further encouraging youth exchanges between the Mainland and Hong Kong. The ACYF announced a series of measures to benefit young people in Hong Kong in 2021, covering education, employment, entrepreneurship, internships, youth services, etc. Miss Mak thanked the ACYF for its strong support for the youth development work of the HKSAR Government, which enables Hong Kong youths to enhance their understanding of the motherland and sense of identity through personal experience. She also encouraged young people on the Mainland to go on exchange to Hong Kong, so as to learn more about Hong Kong's culture and social situation and promote mutual understanding between Mainland and Hong Kong youths. In addition, after her arrival yesterday (July 16), Miss Mak met with Hong Kong youths and student groups in Beijing to learn about their study, work and life on the Mainland. Miss Mak encouraged them to seize the opportunity to interact, learn and communicate with young people on the Mainland to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the country's development.