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Empty school in Mui Wo must be given to drug rehab college

Last month, pupils from the drug rehabilitation school Christian Zheng Sheng College staged a demonstration outside the Legislative Council to protest over delays to their relocation.

The present campus is poorly equipped and is not in a suitable location. It is on a slope and faces a risk of landslides after heavy rainfall.

There is no similar college which can help young drug addicts turn over a new leaf and assimilate back into Hong Kong society.

For this reason, there is a great demand for its services, and so it needs to expand so that it can accommodate more students.

Zheng Sheng would like to relocate to a vacant school with a bigger campus in Mui Wo - the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Southern District Secondary School.

However, there is strong opposition from local residents, some of whom are concerned about the influence on their own children.

I support the relocation plan. The students at Zheng Sheng are eager to reform and start afresh. They want to study hard and gain public acceptance.

Mui Wo residents should accept that these young people are sincere about making a difference to their lives and that they need suitable premises in order to go through a successful rehabilitation process.

Residents want the school to be reopened for local children, but they must realise that the needs of the Zheng Sheng students are more pressing.

I appreciate that some Mui Wo children face a commute of two to three hours every day to study in schools in Hong Kong.

However, there is an urgent need for Zheng Sheng college to relocate and they have to be given priority.

If the college has a better school environment, then I am confident it can go from strength to strength and help more teenagers cure their addictions.

Chan Hoi-yan, Sham Shui Po

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