Hong Kong Deaf Rugby Team Start Fundraiser for Argentina 7s in April 2023

HKRU Community Foundation have kickstarted a community fundraiser to support the city’s deaf rugby team to travel to 2023’s Deaf World 7s Tournament to be held in Cordoba, Argentina in April.

The fundraiser, supported by the HKRU Community Foundation, is hoping to raise HK$200,000 to send a dozen of Hong Kong’s deaf players in the deaf rugby 7s team to the Argentina 2023 finals.

“The reason for our Deaf Rugby Program is a social inclusion effort,” Rocky Chow, Chief Community Officer of HKRU Community Foundation, says, “[Being] deaf is just a different form of communication and through sport we want to build confidence for participants to communicate and integrate into active community.”

Rocky states that whilst the city is home to more than 150,000 hearing-impaired and deaf, there only exists seven official deaf national sports teams. Despite deaf rugby as a core program within the union’s community foundation, deaf athletes in Hong Kong still aren't eligible for sponsorships under the Hong Kong Sports Institute Elite Training Grant for Athletes with Disabilities (ETGD).

The future for deaf rugby is strong, Rocky says. “We began with only an adult programme, and we now are in partnership with Society of the Deaf, run summer programmes for children and youth, and we plan to bring Deaf Rugby to the larger deaf community in Hong Kong.”