SOCIAL WELFARE
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the Centre is thus able to take in other destitute disabled persons for training and institutional care. At the end of the year there were 138 physically-handicapped people, with 33 dependants, living in the Centre, while case-workers were engaged in studying the suitability for admission of many more cases. Employment under sheltered conditions has been organized, and articles such as bead-necklaces, plastic string- bags, gloves and wooden toys are produced. The majority of the residents are cripples, but recently several cured lepers were transferred from the Hayling Island leprosarium and are assisting in the Centre's vegetable farm.
The School for the Deaf, a subsidized school, provides 70 pupils with special educational treatment, including speech- training and the teaching of handicrafts. Increased facilities for deaf children are envisaged with the grant of land by the Government to the Rotary Club of Hong Kong Island (East) on which to build new premises for the Overseas Chinese School for Deaf and Dumb, which will then be in a position to take in more pupils than at present and develop vocational training.
The Ebenezer Blind Home opened an extension in June, making space available for a further 30 blind children. The present capacity of the Home is 100, of whom about 30 are adult blind women engaged in teaching in the Home, or in sheltered employment, such as knitting by hand and machine, weaving woollen scarves, or rattan work. The rest are children of school age receiving a primary school education, mainly through the medium of Cantonese braille. English braille is also taught, and several older pupils are learning how to type. There are a number of day-pupils in the Home, among them eight blind boys from North Point Relief Camp, which has under its care about 30 blind people of both sexes.
The inauguration of the Hong Kong Society for the Blind was a most significant event for the Colony's estimated blind population of 4,000. Approximately 800 non-institutional blind are now registered with the Social Welfare Office, and relief is given to those found living under conditions of hard- ship. The new Society's first project is to launch a drive for funds to advance the work of preventing blindness and promoting the education, rehabilitation and welfare of the blind.
Hong Kong was represented by the Superintendent of the Ebenezer Blind Home at the Far East Conference on