HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1953
the 79 charitable societies alreadly in existence, but also as the pioneer in developing new kinds of welfare work to which voluntary organizations may later be attracted.
The Social Welfare Advisory Committee, under the Chair- manship of the Social Welfare Officer and composed entirely of unofficial members either representing voluntary societies or chosen for their experience in social work, chiefly confined its activities during the year to examining applications for financial grants from individual organizations. A number of sub-com- mittees were set up to examine and report on blind welfare, moral welfare, child care, juvenile offenders and Public Assis-
tance.
G
During 1953, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, of which most of the prominent western-style voluntary organ- izations are members, published booklets in the English and Chinese languages describing the work of the Government and private welfare agencies.
There has been an increase in destitution chiefly amongst the aged, the physically weak or unskilled members of the community who are now unable to return to their native villages in China. Some of these people are juvenile vagrants, the subjects of expulsion or banishment orders; while others are physically or mentally handicapped from competing in the Colony's limited employment markets. There has thus been every incentive for increasing the extent of both official and private welfare work throughout the Colony.
Two events during 1953 have illustrated the enthusiastic collaboration of The Social Welfare Office and the voluntary societies. The first was the organization of special free cinema shows before the Coronation and the holding of parties on the Coronation holidays for over 30,000 poor children not at school; and the second the disastrous fire in Shek Kip Mei squatter
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