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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This report covers the period from April 1955 to March 1956. "To enable every member of the community to develop into a reliable neighbour, and a useful and informed fellow-citizen". Such was the definition of the Social Welfare Services in Hong Kong which was adopted by the Social Welfare Office as its ideal shortly after its establishment in 1948, and this aim remains the department's goal to-day.
2. Certain basic facts about Hong Kong ought to be mentioned in the introduction to any report dealing with social welfare work in this Colony, for it is against the background of these facts that the social worker must do his best to tackle and solve the variety of social problems which come his way. These facts are, that the population is more than 99% Chinese, of whom the majority are Cantonese from the neighbouring province of Kwangtung; that there are good reasons to believe that at least half the population of 24 million has less than ten years residence here; and that it is certain that more than half of the residents, of whatever nationality, consider their real home to be elsewhere. Acute shortage of land for building (which grows worse day by day), and water supplies which have never yet in the Colony's history caught up with public demand, aggravate the problems of living in this unbelievably congested city. Other social problems have been created by squatters, refugees from China, and by typhoons and fires.
3. The period covered by this report, 1st April, 1955 to 31st March, 1956, was one of steady and unobstrusive expansion of welfare activities throughout the Colony, both on the part of Government and of the many energetic and devoted voluntary organizations which serve the needs of their fellow citizens. The scope of the Social Welfare Office's work continued to grow, and the staff were hard put to it to cope with all the demands made upon their services.
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