or even very young adults. In Hong Kong early economic maturity is forced upon so great a part of the community, that practical youth welfare work has as a rule been carried out for boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 15; during 1949 efforts were made to extend this age-group upwards from 10 to 21. At the beginning of 1949 six other major problems still had to be faced: lack of money, lack of staff, lack of accommodation, lack of co-ordination between different organisations, lack of any general policy, and very serious gaps in the available knowledge about the needs of different sections of Hong Kong's youth. Money alone would not have solved all those problems: sufficient money and an adequate supply of properly trained staff would have met most of them, and it is encouraging to be able to record that through joint government and voluntary action definite pro- gress was made.
A Youth Leaders' training course was instituted at the beginning of the year, which was later followed by a series of lectures on health education. The Boys and Girls Clubs Association was formally affiliated to the National Association of Girls Clubs and Mixed Clubs in the United Kingdom; and with the aid of a Government grant it also engaged a full- time field secretary. The local branch of the Girl Guides Association, again with the help of a special government grant, arranged to share with certain other territories in South East Asia the temporary services of a highly qualified trainer in 1950; this should do much to raise still further the high standard of Girl Guide work in the Colony.
Lack of bathing facilities for under-privileged children, who cannot afford the comparatively expensive transport to the Colony's beaches, was met in part by the provision of a bathing shed at Kennedy Town by the Boys and Girls Clubs Association. Experimental holiday camps for about 200 of these children were so successful that plans were made for setting up a permanent camp site which could cater for up to 9,000 deprived children a year as well as many school- children. Thirty-seven non-government clubs and six government children's clubs between them had a total membership of about 1,750 deprived or near-destitute children, and it was encouraging to note how these young future Hong Kong citizens all benefited markedly in self- control, self-respect and initiative as a result of joining these clubs. Finally, through the help of the War Memorial Fund Committee, the Children's Playgrounds Association was able to complete its plans for a Centre in the heart of Wanchai where five different organisations concerned with child and youth welfare will have headquarters or branches, where further training facilities for youth leaders or workers will be available, where under-privileged young persons' recrea- tion will be given first priority, and where a far closer prac-
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