SOCIAL WELFARE
139
Aid Society assists in finding jobs and providing temporary accom- modation and material assistance for discharged prisoners.
YOUTH WELFARE
Additional opportunities and outlets for the energies of young people are needed and effort has been devoted during the year to stimulating new and improved services for young people between 14 and 19 years of age. Youth groups of varying sizes are organized at the various community and social centres as well as in ground floor or rooftop premises of resettlement estates, while youth hostels and camps are provided in the New Territories where young people can enjoy a day or more of healthy recreation and outdoor activity.
The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups has started many youth activities both in the urban and rural areas. Apart from its youth centres the Federation operates, in collaboration with the Education and Social Welfare Departments, a training and recrea- tion centre at Tsuen Wan where 50 boys and girls at a time can enjoy outdoor pursuits and training. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme continues to attract numbers of young people to use their own initiative and imagination in circumstances calling for independent thought and quick action. Organizations such as the YWCA, YMCA, Scouts, Guides, Boys' and Girls' Club Associa- tion and the Hong Kong Sea School, provide a wide range of activities for the many interests of youth. The task of co-ordinating and promoting all these activities has for many years been the function of the Hong Kong Conference of Youth Organizations, a consultative body made up of 22 voluntary youth agencies and three government departments. The Conference also runs a camp at Silver Mine Bay giving a week's holiday to some 3,500 children a year.
ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF
More intensive casework, aimed at rehabilitating and restoring destitutes and others to full or partial economic independence; strict application of present standards of entitlement; and relative improvement in the economic and employment conditions for fit young people in the Colony are all factors that contributed to a further decrease in relief expenditure during the year. The number