Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 39th Macau Walk for a Million organised by the Charity Fund from the Readers of Macao Daily News was held once again online via WeChat yesterday, with only its representatives walking around the University of Macau (UM) campus.
This was the third consecutive year that the event was held online.
The starting ceremony was held at the University of Macau’s (UM) Guest House.
Civic leader Tina Ho Teng Iat, president of the charity fund, told the Chinese-language media on the sidelines of the event that this year more than 300 associations participated in the event, involving over 88,000 people. As of yesterday afternoon, when she spoke to the media, the donations raised were similar to those in previous years, or about 16 million patacas, which will be used for charitable causes and public welfare.
Manuel Iok Pui Ferreira, vice president of the charity fund, said that the online event had achieved the expected results, especially based on the “online walk” experience for three consecutive years. In addition to local residents, he noted, also people from the Chinese mainland and abroad participated in the event.
According to a statement by the charity fund, the event started at 10 a.m. yesterday when it opened its WeChat “mini programme” for the public to participate in the event by turning on their WeChat “exercise app” to track their steps and sync their step counts with its online platform.
The statement noted that as of 10 p.m. yesterday, 82,300 participants had turned on their WeChat “exercise app”, of whom 46,429 participants walked at least 6,000 steps each and therefore were able to receive an electronic certificate, accumulating a total of 312,895,357 steps.
The statement pointed out that the number of followers of its WeChat public account has reached 118,125.
The Chinese-language Macao Daily News is Macau’s top-selling newspaper.
Representatives of the the Charity Fund from the Readers of Macao Daily News – including its President Tina Ho Teng Iat (front, third from right) – walk around the University of Macau (UM) campus yesterday after the starting ceremony for the 39th Macau Walk for a Million. – Photo courtesy of TDM
