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SOCIAL WELFARE
for the Blind expanded its facilities so that there is now a school place available for every blind child. The opening of the Princess Alexandra Red Cross Children's Home at Kwun Tong made special educational treatment available for crippled children, while the Victoria Park School for the Deaf opened four more classes for deaf children.
The rapid pace of social change in Hong Kong has made some breakdown in family life inevitable. While the concept of family care for the aged is still predominant within the community, in- creased provision has now to be made for the institutional care of those who are left without support or whose infirmity places an intolerable burden on their families. During the year the Little Sisters of the Poor opened another home for the aged, the Sin Tin Toa Home expanded its facilities and the Chinese Christian Churches Union made progress in building a new home for the aged.
In a seaport such as Hong Kong the commercialization of sex is to some extent inevitable and takes the usual forms ranging from prostitution to indecent publications and exhibitions. Efforts were made by the Social Welfare and other departments to prevent the spread of vice, particularly in respect of undesirable advertise- ments and publications, while at the same time every assistance was given to prostitutes, dance hostesses, unmarried mothers and others who wished to change their way of life.
Typhoon Wanda, which struck the Colony on September 1, stretched the emergency relief resources of the department to their limit and disrupted normal work for more than a month afterwards (details can be found in The Year's Weather, chapter 15). A total of 56 other disasters left a further toll of 65 dead, 46 injured and 9,471 homeless, making 1962 one of the worst disaster years on record.
At Hung Hom in November His Excellency the Officer Admin- istering the Government opened the first kitchen built by the Children's Meals Committee with generous assistance from the Church World Service, the Dutch Reform Church and the British Council of Churches. This committee, which is under the chairman- ship of the Right Reverend R. O. Hall, Bishop of Hong Kong, was formed to provide meals, either free or for a nominal charge, to undernourished children in primary schools. In recent years