The Hong Kong Christian Service Pui Oi School, the first Education Department aided special school for physically handicapped children according to the standard schedule of accommodation, has been reprovisioned to Tuen Mun. It provides special education to special children aged 5 to 16 in preparatory classes, primary classes, and junior secondary classes.

The working group has previously held various staff training programs including "Hong Kong's Love, China's Heart" and a "Training Workshop on the Way of Thinking". In order to provide workers with practical experience in China's culture and society, a "Staff Experiential Plan" was introduced. The "Dragon's Heart" Mainland-Hong Kong Exchange Tour was proposed by our Children and Youth Centre-based Service, 9 staff were subsidized by our Agency to participate in.

According to Ms Ena Yuen, Service Supervisor of our Children and Youth Centre-based Service, in order to better understand China, youth workers should first begin to know the youths in China. The five-day trip had provided an opportunity for them to visit the Guangzhou Yan Oi Social Service Centre, the Guangzhou Normal University, the Guangzhou Federation of Youth, the Institute for Guangzhou-Hong Kong-Macau Youth Research (GZ), and the Panyu Committee of the Communist Youth League of China. They also visited the labor work place, the Guangzhou Book City, the Labor Bazaar, and the Youth Bazaar, etc.

Through life experience and culture exchange, the youth workers were able to understand more about the youths in China and their attitude towards friends, career, mass media, the communist party, as well as how they perceive their future. The tour had further stimulated them in evaluating their working direction, especially when youth workers realized that youths in China are well aware of their personal goals. This stimulated them to encourage youths in Hong Kong to search and fight for their own goals.

In fact, Hong Kong and Guangzhou are both more advance in economic life than spiritual life. Youths in both cities tend to emphasize more on one's personal development and thus seem to have disregard their society and national need. From this experience, youth workers also learnt the importance of nourishing nationalism and socialism among the younger generation.

During the exchange tour, youth workers had the opportunity to meet some of the youth workers from Panyu. They were really impressed by their attitudes toward their services. Unfortunately, their service development is often obstructed by insufficient resources. Nevertheless, they were humble and earnest to learn some professional service techniques from Hong Kong workers.

Ms Yuen stated that she hopes to collaborate with youth workers in China so that they will understand more about our service philosophy behind the professional skills.