XN000022-1997-04-09 — Page 48

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(a)

The Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education (CPCE) promotes equal opportunities for all in its human rights education programmes. The programmes aim at bringing home the notion that all human beings are equal irrespective of differences in gender, physical ability, race, family and social status etc. Apart from such a general message, a specific one aimed at the elimination of discrimination against new immigrants is contained in a story book and story cassette distributed to children and one of the activity plans in the teaching kit distributed to schools. To date, 10,000 copies of the story book and 20,000 copies of the cassette tape have been distributed to children and 2,000 sets of the teaching kit have been distributed to schools. In addition, the CPCE has sponsored, under the Community Participation Scheme in 1996-97, two projects on elimination of discrimination against new immigrants and will sponsor another project on this theme in 1997-98.

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The service of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is available to all including new arrivals - who suffer discrimination on grounds of gender, marital status, pregnancy or disability. Its publicity and public education activities aim at eliminating discrimination on these grounds and promoting equal opportunities for all. Activities specifically to address discrimination on the ground of an individual being a new immigrant are outside the EOC's statutory functions.

(b) The effectiveness of the CPCE's and EOC's activities to address discrimination can be assessed in terms of the changes in the public's attitude towards equal opportunities for all including new immigrants. Both the CPCE and EOC will conduct public opinion surveys, the results of which will indicate whether any improvement in such attitude has taken place.