On Wednesday, HK Scottish Club Captain and HKRFU Rugby Child Welfare Officer ;Craig Wilson presented the School of Rugby to Scottish First Minister Alex Slamond at Confucius Hall Middle School.
The First Minister has a particular interest with the “School of Rugby” programme, as it was born out of the 2011 memorandum of understanding signed between himself and the then Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang to use sport as a medium to foster closer relations between the two countries. Since then the Hong Kong and Scottish Rugby Unions have worked together on a number of projects, and the School of Rugby concept and resources have been kindly made available to Hong Kong through Scottish Rugby’s generosity; their own version is now in its fourth year, and the unique combination of classroom lessons, PE and extracurricular activities is proving to have a positive impact with students in the targeted schools, all under the funding of the innovative Cashback scheme which uses the proceeds of crime to fund community projects in Scotland.
The First Minister, accompanied by HKRFU President Brian Stevenson and Chairman Trevor Gregory, was shown round by two of the students, Leon and Rajan, who were most interested to learn who his favourite rugby player was, and whether he preferred haggis or shepherd’s pie (Jason White and haggis, for the record). The First Minister was a huge hit with the students, according to Wilson, he was very interested to see how the programme was progressing, and was very supportive. We also explained that HK Scottish Community sponsors’ Edinburgh Napier University were involved with measuring the impact of the project on the physiological and psychological well-being of the students, another great example of Scottish-Hong Kong co-operation! The First Minister was presented with a special souvenir to mark his visit by Dr. Dennis Hui, the Chairman of Confucius Hall, he in turn presented a Quaich to the school, which Dr Hui promised would become the future rugby trophy.