SOCIAL WELFARE
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orphanages and other children's homes, but this figure does not include juvenile delinquents, girls in moral danger, or physically handicapped children, who are cared for in special institutions. The leading organization in the Colony dealing with the institutional care of children is the Christian Children's Fund, which is planning to build a new orphanage known as 'Children's Garden' at Wu Kwai Sha in the New Territories. This Home, which is being built on the cottage system, will be one of the most modern in the whole of the Far East, and will accommodate up to 1,000 children.
During the year a new Adoption Ordinance came into force, making legal adoption now possible. Previously the only form of adoption that existed in the Colony was that prescribed by Chinese custom.
The Child Welfare Section of the Social Welfare Office has been responsible for extra duties in 1956, handling cases for proposed adoption abroad, especially for emigration to the United States of America under the Refugee Relief Act of July 1953, which permitted 4,000 orphans throughout the world to enter America for adoption. Exhaustive inquiries were made in nearly 100 such cases.
A number of voluntary organizations have continued to show interest in developing day nurseries and crêches for the children of mothers who have to go out to work. Some of these ventures have not survived for long mainly on account of financial difficulties, but the end of the year saw seven well established day nurseries in operation throughout the Colony, notable among these being the Y.W.C.A. nursery at Un Chow Street, the Faith-Hope Nursery at Homantin and the Eastern Women's Welfare Club nursery at North Point. There are others still in the planning stage.
In the field of Infant Welfare the Society for the Protection of Children continues its valuable work of educating the mothers of poor families in methods of child care, and in bathing, feeding and distributing supplementary food to