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Sports and Recreation

Trust-funded Mapperthon Community Action Project links sports to community services
18/05/2017

Everybody knows about the health benefits of regular exercise, but did you know it can also help people in need?

As a means of promoting sports among the city’s youth and enriching their understanding of the local community, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has made a donation of some HK$31 million for the Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong to implement a Jockey Club Mapperthon Community Action Project for three years.

The Trust has developed the concept of ‘Sportovation’ to promote sports for all, using innovative sporting ideas to motivate individuals at all levels to take part. By injecting such new elements, the Trust wants to arouse people’s interest in taking up physical activities, so as to make exercise become a regular habit.

The Jockey Club Mapperthon Community Action Project is one of these “Sportovation” initiatives. It is aimed at encouraging young people to take part in seven “street-based” sports while developing community resource-matching initiatives to convert calories burned into daily necessities that help those in need. The project links sports to the community by helping participants understand the needs, resources and environment of their local area, and making sports meaningful and convenient to the city’s youth.

Key components of the project are:

1. Sports training: In five districts, 1,500 mappers will be recruited and trained in seven “street-based” sports – running, cycling, street dance, street workout, X-Games, cricket and taspony (a type of volleyball using sponge balls) – as well as their understanding of social issues and the mapping of community assets.

2.Community resources mapping and matching. Mappers will develop feasible community resource-matching initiatives in co-operation with local small shops and corporates. Each mapper with be equipped with a fitness tracker for recording the amount of calories burned during exercise, which can be transformed into the amount of resources to be donated by the corporates. Together, they are expected to conduct 100 to 150 services each year, helping the underprivileged in the community.

3.Overseas sports experience for mappers. Mappers will be invited to submit proposals for an overseas sports development experience of their choice, for example participating in an overseas triathlon. Ten proposals will be selected each year, with each successful mapper receiving up to HK$30,000 in funding support.

4.Public engagement. Talks will be arranged in schools around Hong Kong and a carnival organised at the end of each year to promote sports and active living, attracting over 45,000 participants.

For details of the project, please visit: http://www.ymca.org.hk/en/content/mapperthon-community-action-project.