In
the summer of 1997 Gold Mail Box (HK) Limited and its business partner,
Young Reader Book Club (YRBC), jointly launched an educational program
called Summer Project in Hong Kong. It was a reading, writing, drawing
and story-telling program designed for the YRBC members and some overseas
children, who came back to Hong Kong together with their parents, to witness
the 1997 Hand-Over Ceremony. The program was so successful that many parents,
whose children were not YRBC members, requested to partcipate. The Organising
Committee of the program decided to grant a special permission to allow
these applicants to join free of charge. The
financing problem was resolved through fund raising among the friends
of the Committee members.
In
the summer of 1998 many parents, who participated in Summer Project 97,
wanted us to return the same program for their children. Gold Mail Box
and YRBC agreed to organise another Summer Project again. This year the
scope of the project was significantly expanded. We made the program freely
available to all teachers and students of the Hong Kong public schools
in addition to the YRBC members. Since the Government was discussing about
IT in Education, the Organising Committee had collected some information
on this topic from USA and shared them with the teachers and parents.
A computer room was also set
up to allow teachers to acquire computing skills and study the best method
to teach basic computing concepts to young children. The Summer Project
was continued in 1999 & 2000.At
the end of the project both the participants and the Organising Committee
agreed that this is an excellent program and a highly valuable community
service. It brings real benefits to our children, the schools and the parents.
Since there are people donating money to build schools, the Organising Committee
thought that it should be possible to raise fund to finance educational
programs like Summer Project.Furthermore,
the Organising Committee wanted to work on a more ambitious project - to
develop a local HK Schools Zone. This is a cyber community connecting both
providers and consumers of education services. To finance this project
the
Committe decided to establish a charitable foundation called the
HK Schools Zone Foundation. A preparatory committee has been set up. Hong
Kong Schools Zone is expected to be established by 2001.
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