The Summer Activities co-organized by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau and the Macao Sport Development Board provide a wide range of interesting activities for all children and teenagers in Macao during the summer vacation every year. These summer activities allowed them to fully utilize their leisure time, acquire knowledge outside classroom and enrich their learning experiences. This year, the organizers arranged approximately 1,600 classes teaching over 360 skills and offering around 50,000 quotas. The number of quotas increased by over 1,800 compared to last year.
The summer activities mainly included sports activities and cultural and recreational activities. The Macao Sport Development Board was responsbile for organizing sports activities consisted of seven categories, namely ball games, water sports, martial arts and boxing, dance sport and chess, other sports activities, themed camps and development activities. Eight new activities – water sports adventure, freestyle basketball, roller hockey, windsurfing, advanced class for boxing, orienteering, advanced class for artistic rope skipping and mini basketball, a development activity for hearing-impaired people – were newly offered. There were totally 726 classes teaching 115 games to 22,900 person-times.
In line with the theme of the sports activities this year“Experience Life, Enjoy Sports”, the Macao Sport Development Board designed 17 themed camps featuring sports for participants to experience a different life and enjoy sports when fulfilling the motto of “Let’s Exercise for a Better Health”. Out of them, 10 camps including “Sports Culture Exchange Camp for Students from Guangdong and Macao”, “Ecological Cycling Tour”, “Water Sports Camp”, “Challenging Wild Camping”and “Survival Camp” were newly organized this year. By bringing students out of campus to Guangdong and Hong Kong to participate in various camps, the Board provided a platform for the students to learn, exercise and share experiences, allowed them to improve their physical conditions and ability to take care of themselves, cultivate team spirits and develop courage to face difficulties.
The major goals of the summer activities are to encourage teenagers to establish a positive attitude, allow them to actively participate in sports for all activities, cultivate their interests in sports, cultural and recreational activities, improve their physical conditions, and widen their horizons and scope of knowledge by experiencing things different from their daily life through the summer activities. Besides, the government also aims to discover and recruit potential students with the assistance of the coaches. By developing their talents and urging them to receive professional training later, they can be the future of the sports games of Macao. Through summer activities, a great number of talented athletes were discovered, including divers Choi Sut Ian and Choi Sut Kuan, swimmer Lei On Kei, artistic cyclers Wong Hang Cheong and Kuan Sok Mui, martial art athlete Chu Chi Wai, etc. representing the Macao SAR.
For years, many children and teenagers also discover their interests and talents through summer activities. Continuing their learning and trainings, they acquire more knowledge and obtained fabulous achievements in some disciplines, skills or professions. Some participants even become tutors and professionals in all walks of life to sustain, popularize and develop various kinds of activities.
The summer activities have been held for more than thirty years and the achievements are widely acknowledged. The organizers will persist in providing more comprehensive summer activities and improve the quality of the event.
