Sports added to summer camp fun

Shanghai’s “Love Summer Care” event will be keeping around 30,000 children busy during the summer holidays this year.

The Youth League Shanghai, organizer of the program, said on Thursday that sports sessions will be introduced for the first time at the city’s 556 camps.

Children will be able to take classes in football, basketball, wushu, taekwondo, rope jumping, fitness and other sporting activities.

Zhou Zhanwei, secretary general of Shanghai Teenager Sports Association, said each student will have classes in five to 10 kinds of sports.

“The classes will aim at arousing their interest in playing sports and training their sports skills,” he said.

Zhou said teachers holding the classes will be required to have qualifications, and training sessions for them would be held before the start of the program. 

“The teachers are sports teachers at schools and children’s sports-training centers as well as those from non-governmental organizations that promote sports among children,” he said. “The sports authorities will supervise the classes throughout the summer.”

Apart from sports, the children will also be taught about garbage sorting as the city’s first regulations take effect from July 1.

Ren Bo, a youth league official, said every camp will have bins for different types of waste to educate the children.

Since 2014, the “Love Summer Care” program has catered for around 173,000 children whose parents are unable to look after them during the holidays.

This year's first term will be from July 8 to 31, and the second from August 1 to 23. A total of 27 non-governmental organizations are providing classes.

All primary school students in Shanghai can sign up, with each camp taking up to 50 children.