For the last two years Mount St Mary’s College, in the UK, have organised a summer rugby camp for over a 100 boys from around the world. The camp is run by the Natal Sharks and involves 10 days of fun activities and some high quality rugby coaching, with a chance to interact with a number of international players. Mount St. Mary’s is the school attended by former Hong Kong Under 20 international and Kowloon player Tony Ho, who was tragically killed while studying at university. On the back of that devastating incident, the school and Kowloon have developed a close relationship forged on the determination to honour Tony’s memory and create a lasting legacy in his name. Funds raised over the past few years from the Kowloon RugbyFest tournament go to support youngsters from Kowloon Lions, Sai Kung Stingrays and Operation Breakthrough attending the summer camp, and in addition one boy from Breakthrough is attending the school for a year’s study giving him the opportunity to study overseas and to receive some great rugby coaching.  

The Kowloon Rugby Fest, held just before the HK Sevens, has been able to fund the last two trips and the scholarship this year. However this is not sustainable going forward and so this year Kowloon will be asking the boys who are attending the rugby camp to contribute towards the costs. Through this extra funding we should be able to make both the camp and the scholarship a regular  annual exercise to remember Tony and also give a great opportunity to a number of local HK boys.  

Obviously  it will be difficult for the Breakthrough boys to raise money towards the camp and so with some help from Standard Chartered Bank, our sponsors of the Breakthrough Rugby Section we have obtained five places in the 10K run at the HK Marathon on 12 February 2017. We have asked five boys', who at this stage of the season are most likely to be nominated to attend the camp, to fill these  five spots and we are looking to raise sponsorship for five Breakthrough boys to attend the Tony Ho Rugby Camp in August 2017. Any additional money raised will be used to help with the funding of the scholarship.

Any donation however small is welcome and for those in HK donations over $100 are tax deductible.   Further details on Operation Breakthrough can be found at our web site and if anyone has any queries please contact Steve Tarrant.