Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

THE city’s annual selection of Excellent Youth this year will include a special category for those who have contributed a great deal to the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, officials said at a news conference held yesterday morning.

Foreigners, front-line medical workers and delivery persons with shining stories in the epidemic fight can all apply for the award.

The selection will open for applications tomorrow and the results are scheduled to be announced in early July, according to Lai Feng, deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, the organizer of the event.

First held in 2014, the annual event aims to find outstanding role models who have made remarkable contributions to Shenzhen’s development.

More information about the event is available on the WeChat account of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League.

At present, there are a total of 1,710 teams consisting of more than 32,500 young people working on the frontline to combat the disease.

More than 1,200 volunteers including psychological doctors have served 11,039 citizens and front-line workers so far.

The city also encouraged youth foundations to launch donation drives in order to support Shenzhen and Hubei’s fight against the disease when the virus first emerged.

It is said that two foundations under the Shenzhen youth league collected almost 4 million yuan (US$565,600) in funds, 937,000 face masks, 6,580 pieces of protective gear and 20.3 tons of disinfectant liquid.

At the same time, Shenzhen issued a youth development plan (2020-2035) to promote development of young people aged between 14 and 35.

The plan includes benchmarks from 10 aspects of society, such as education, culture, health, marriage, employment, innovation and exchange and cooperation.

In order to resolve some young adults’ difficulties in getting married, the plan suggested an inclusion of marriage education to current education systems and more dating activities through a charity dating platform named “Qing’aituan (青爱团).” In order to protect the legitimate rights of young people, relevant mechanisms will be established and the hotline 12355 set specifically for youth service will be optimized for use, according to the plan.