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SOCIAL WELFARE
rehabilitation and the restoration of the handicapped as far as possible to social and economic usefulness; voluntary organizations continued to play an important role in the latter development. Greater attention is being devoted meanwhile to the co-ordination of services for the training and employment of the various classes of handicapped. The Ebenezer School and Home for the Blind and the Canossa School for Blind Girls nearly doubled their schooling facilities, while the Hong Kong Society for the Blind increased from three to nine the number of vocational training and sheltered employment centres which it runs with some assist- ance from the Social Welfare Department. The Department also opened a seventh club for blind adults, at Tsuen Wan. The Victoria Park School for the Deaf expanded its schooling facilities by open- ing an extra class, while the Department started a third club for deaf children. The acceptance in principle of the Hilliard Report on the care of the mentally sub-normal in Hong Kong focused attention on the needs of mental defectives. There are at present some 200 mentally defective children in institutions where no special provision yet exists for them. As a preliminary step the Department inaugurated a day training centre for about 20 mental defectives at the Tsan Yuk Social Centre. For the aged, two new Homes were opened, one by the Little Sisters of the Poor at Aberdeen, eventually to house 400, and the other by the West China Evangelistic Band at Sha Tin with accommodation for 40.
The provision of material relief continued to be a basic activity of many welfare agencies, as well as of the Social Welfare Depart- ment, so much so that starvation in Hong Kong might be regarded as a condition of the past. The Department's free feeding pro- gramme catered for a daily average of 11,000 people, an increase of 1,000 over the 1960 figure. Large quantities of American sur- plus foodstuffs, distributed primarily through international volun- tary agencies, augmented the diet of many poor families. Towards the end of the year, bulgar wheat was introduced as one of the items of surplus foodstuff, by way of experiment.
Hong Kong, although often subject to fires, typhoons, floods and other natural disasters, passed the year with only one major mishap. This was the January fire at Valley Hill, Hung Hom, the worst fire of its kind since 1953, which destroyed about 1,200 squatter huts and rendered more than 11,000 homeless. The 28