The Social Welfare Bureau’s Community Service Coordination Division of the Macao SAR Government and the Centre for Macau Studies (CMS) of the University of Macau held a book launch event for the new book Zi You Fang Hua (Macao Women’s Biographies) at the Macau Tower on 27 November, 2020.
Various guests attended the event: four representatives from the Social Welfare Bureau of the Macao SAR Government (SWB), including director HON Wai, deputy director TANG Yuk Wa, head of the Department of Family and Community Services LEI Lai Peng, head of the Community Service Coordination Division LAM Pui Seong; CMS’s associate director TANG On Kei and the author of the book, Ms. LO Heung Chu.
At the event, the director of the SWB, Mr. HON Wai, delivered a speech and presented the book to the twenty-two interviewees and their representatives as a token of gratitude. CMS’s associate director TANG On Kei, presented the book to the collaborators as a token of appreciation for their contribution to the publication.
This project started in 2017 and was organised by the Committee for Women and Children Affairs. It interviewed a number of Macao women and collected valuable information about those people, which was originally intended to be kept in the database of the Committee for Women and Children Affairs. In 2018, at the initiative of CMS’s director LAM Iok Feng, the SWB agreed to collaborate on the publication of the book, which took two years to organise and compile.
This book is a saga of the lives of twenty-two protagonists, who, in the face of hardship and challenges, have seized the opportunity to rise to the challenge and overcome the challenges of time. At the same time, it demonstrates the spirit of self-respect, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-improvement that the new generation should learn from.
