Hong Kong school strives to enhance people-to-people connection under Belt and Road Initiative

HONG KONG -- "I didn't think of studying in the Chinese mainland until I went on a trip to Beijing last November," Mejorada Nicole Katelyn Remeticado, a Filipino student in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), told Xinhua her latest plan for the future.

Remeticado is a student from Caritas Tuen Mun Marden Foundation Secondary School in the New Territories of Hong Kong, a local high school with a total of some 300 students from over 15 countries and regions.

Unlike those famous local schools in Hong Kong, Marden Foundation Secondary School has not gained much attention from the society until recent years when the Belt and Road has become one of the buzzwords following its announcement in 2013.

The Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aiming at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa and beyond through the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road.

Promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and other countries and regions participating in the Belt and Road cooperation is one of the five areas of connectivity proposed in the initiative.

The school capitalizes on their "Belt and Road population" to enhance students' knowledge about the initiative and present young people with education opportunities in the mainland.

According to Chu Yuen Yee, the assistant principal of the school, a large number of their students came from Belt and Road countries and regions, including Nepal, Pakistan, India, Yemen, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

During a trip to Beijing organized by her school in November last year, Remeticado visited the Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she met with a couple of alumni from Marden Foundation.

"They shared with me their college life in Beijing which I found impressive," the teenager said. "I would like to do my tertiary education outside Hong Kong, and the mainland is definitely one of my choices."

Like many of her fellow schoolmates, Remeticado learnt about the Belt and Road Initiative during Liberal Studies class, a core subject in Hong Kong high-school education. "It's initiated by China with the aim to connect different countries together," she said.

Lai Man Fat, Remeticado's Liberal Studies teacher, said that by talking about culture, they help students to build the concept of what the initiative is all about.

"We encouraged our students to start from their own culture in particular," which, Lai said, is an easier and more interesting way for young people to understand a national-level policy.

The school has set up a Belt and Road exhibition room on the campus, showcasing national costumes, currencies and utensils from various countries and regions.

They even extended the education about Belt and Road outside classroom, by organizing visits to the mainland, for instance. Besides, they have built collaborations with a number of universities on the mainland, all for creating a better path for students' future.

"Hong Kong is not a market big enough for students from Belt and Road countries and regions to develop their career," Yuen Kwok Ming, principal of the school, said. "The mainland is a huge market and has close ties with different countries in business and economics, allowing young people to make the best of their talent."