On December 30, Huadu witnessed the appearance of two new culture landmarks: the long-expected new Huadu District Library opened for trial operation, and the new Huadu Youth and Children's Palace opened its door to the public. And a series of activities were held for celebration.

Huadu District Library opened for trial operation

On the very day of opening, the new library offered the citizens a cultural feast in the form of a series of themed activities, such as the Chrysanthemum Stone Experience Exhibition, the 2022 New Year String Ensemble LIVE Concert, and free gifts based on likes collected. Chen Xiaoan, Deputy Director of Standing Committee of Huadu District People's Congress, Xu Rongya, Deputy District Mayor, and Li Yilin, Vice Chair of District CPPCC, along with leaders of related organizations attended the opening ceremony.

Located at No. 6 Gongyi North Road, with a building area of 15,573 square meters, and a collection of approximately 520,000 books, the new Huadu Library has five floors open for the public, that is, floors B1, 1, 2, 6 and 7. Floor B1 has the lecture hall and the atrium garden; Floor 1 the entrance hall and the security inspection area; Floor 2 the cultural experience area; Floor 6 Azalea revolutionary books room and other open-shelf book rooms, reading areas and training rooms; Floor 7 open-shelf book rooms and reading areas, as well as single and double reading pavilions, self-study rooms, and the local literature room; the library provides readers with a free, flexible and elegant reading place. In addition, there are multiple self-service lending and returning machines and self-service book sterilization machines in the reading areas to help realize modern and intelligent book management, greatly enhancing reading experience of the users. After its opening to the public, the old library at No. 38 Baohua Road will be transformed into a children's library with a building area of 8,630 square meters.

Recent years have witnessed a whole range of innovation efforts of Huadu Library in the area of general public cultural services. It has continuously expanded service areas, focused on publicity and promotion, and supported the building of Huadu as a city of book and reading; during the course, the library saw great improvement in service efficiency and soaring growth of business, and was ranked among top two for consecutive years in district-level libraries of Guangzhou. In 2019, the Huadu Library was selected from libraries in the country as a "Star of Comprehensive Service Efficiency", "Star of Service Efficiency for Book Lending Volume" and "Star of Service Efficiency for Reader Visits”. In 2021, Huadu Library received more than 1.24 million visits of readers and lent out 2.1 million copies of books, setting two new records; and become one of the two district-level public libraries in Guangzhou that have a lending volume of more than 2 million. In 2021, public libraries in the whole District carried out more than 300 reading events, with a total of more than 110,000 participants.

In order to enhance the public cultural services of the District, enrich the spiritual and cultural life of the citizens, and boost the sense of gain and happiness of the people, the District Party Committee and the District government planned and built at a prime location on the District's central axis the Huadu Citizen Plaza, consisting of the District Youth and Children's Palace, the District Library, and the District Performance Arts Center. And at the same time, in order to accelerate the construction progress of the new library, the District listed the intelligent system and other supporting projects of the new library in the lists of the "Ten Livelihood Projects" and "Key Difficulties to Conquer" for 2021, and made many efforts in coordination and supervision for the smooth progress of the projects.

In the future, the District will continue to increase investment in cultural development, and actively promote cultural projects that benefit the people to meet the increasing needs of the people for a better life. (For details, please follow the WeChat public account of Huadu District Library)

The new District Youth and Children's Palace opened

On December 30, the "Opening Ceremony of the New Huadu District Youth and Children's Palace", an event hosted by CYL Huadu District Committee and organized by the Palace, was held at the Palace site, signifying the official opening of the Palace to the public on the same day. The event was attended by Yao Xiaoqun, Deputy Director of Standing Committee of Huadu District People's Congress, leaders of the Social Work Commission of Standing Committee of Huadu District People's Congress, District Party History Study and Education Office, and other relevant departments, current and previous leaders of the CYL Huadu Committee, and representatives of youth and youth parents. Relevant leaders, youth representatives, and teacher representatives unveiled the plaque for the new Palace.

Yao Xiaoqun said that we shall never waiver from spiritual guidance to “build the foundation and shape the soul” of young people, which is the requirement of the times, and guide them to obey and follow the party, so that the red gene and revolutionary fire may be passed on from generation to generation; that we shall build an education system characterized with virtue-based and practice-oriented cultivation, and shape a youth training model that is close to needs, rich in characteristics, and diverse in forms; and that we shall adhere to new development concepts, promote high-quality development, further refine scientific positioning, seize the opportunities, and give full play to the leading role of youth organizations to create a good environment for healthy growth of young people.

Located in the Citizen Plaza on the central axis of Huadu, the Youth and Children's Palace has as its main building a five-floor building, and is divided into four functional areas: children's theater, central square, art gallery, and cultural space. Main facilities there include 1 children’s theater, which can be used for concerts and large-scale performances; 53 comprehensive classrooms, designed as teaching venues for language, science and technology, sports, instrumental music and other subjects; 11 piano rooms, dedicated for dance, vocal music teaching; and for themed activities, there are also venues such as Chinese Young Pioneers home office, youth volunteer activity room, and academic lecture hall. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the Palace takes as its tasks to complete two major youth benchmark projects of Huadu District, in science and technology and in culture respectively; it has been planned to set up a number of characteristic courses with a certain influence in Guangzhou, with an estimated maximum enrollment of 30,000 people each year.

According to a responsible official, the Palace will take advantage of new youth activity events to continuously improve the scale and quality of training, actively implement the "double reduction" policy, highlight the virtue-based and practice-oriented cultivation, and strive to create an organization for spiritual guidance that is featured with "one body, two wings, three transformations, four states, and five dimensions", thereby to continuously enrich the young people's off-campus study life, and promote their healthy growth and all-round development.