Experience the Beijing Olympics through the SkillsActive blog
***NEWS/PRESS RELEASE***
SKILLSACTIVE BLOGGERS GO TO BEIJING
With just three days to go before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are officially underway, thousands of foreign journalists from every spot on the globe will provide news coverage for the sporting event of the year. Joining the professionals will be a team of 24 journalism students from Sheffield Hallam University.
After a gruelling selection process out of 200 candidates, the final 24 students were hand picked by the Olympic Committee. These students arrived in Beijing in early last month to report on the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games for the Olympic News Service (ONS).
SkillsActive has engaged with two of the students, David Stevenson and Charlotte Abbott, to write a weekly blog about their experiences as they live and breathe the Olympic spirit.
Charlotte says: “As I will be part of the environment of sport, culture and media all rolled into one, it will be one ride that should not be missed. Hallam was the only university in Europe to gain this experience, due to its well known establishment of sport culture.”
Arguably the greatest sporting event on the world stage, this years Olympic and Paralympic Games will continue to unite the world through the power of sport.
David says: “The one thing that is standing out in my mind since I have been here and have witnessed Beijing before the games is the international significance the Olympics brings to a country and the effort a host nation has to put in not only in hosting the games themselves but construction, redevelopment, environmental plans and a plan for the future after the games have finished.”
SkillsActive invites you to a front row seat and join David and Charlotte on a virtual journey to the other side of the world http://blog.skillsactive.com/section/beijing2008/
-ENDS-
For more information please contact:
Bernadette Muller
Tel: 020 7632 2000
Email: bernadette.muller@skillsactive.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The students are volunteers with the Olympic News Service (ONS) for the Beijing Olympic Games 2008.
2. The blog is an electronic web log maintained regularly by the students during the Olympic and Paralympic games recording their thoughts and experiences of travelling and living in China during the Beijing Olympics.
3. SkillsActive is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the sport and fitness, playwork, the outdoors and caravan industries – known as the active leisure and learning sector.
4. SSCs are UK-wide, employer-led organisations that aim to tackle the skills and productivity needs of their sector. Twenty five SSCs make up the Skills for Business Network.
5. SkillsActive’s Sector Skills Agreement defines the sector’s skills needs and forms an agreement between employers, government and funding partners to shape the workforce for the next ten years. Priorities identified as a result of the SSA process are: improve the quality and range of services; improve recruitment and retention; professionalise and upskill the existing workforce; match supply to demand; redirect funding for training; increase sector investment in our people.
6. SkillsActive is Shaping Skills for the Future, through…
· PEOPLE…
…ensuring all people in the sector are appropriately trained and qualified.
· PRODUCTIVITY…
…ensuring better performance through the professional development of the sector.
· PROVISION…
…ensuring the sector has accessible, relevant and funded training across the UK.
· PROMOTION…
…ensuring the contributions of the sector are recognised at a governmental level.
7. For more information about SkillsActive, please visit our website @ www.skillsactive.com
