CHAPTER I-INTRODUCTION
THIS report covers the period from 1st April, 1956 to 31st March, 1957.
2. The Social Welfare Office was established in 1948 as a specialized and semi-independent branch of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, in the same way as the Labour Department before it. In its broadest sense social welfare covers a wide range, and includes a variety of services to the community, such as medical, educational, resettlement of squatters, etc. The common factor binding all these "Social Services" together, is that they all contribute to the personal betterment of the individual citizen, as distinct from other services such as (for instance), sanitation, which have a more general benefit for the community as a whole.
3. Shortly after its establishment the Social Welfare Office, which concerns itself with welfare in a more restricted sense, adopted the following definition of its ideal: "To enable every member of the community to develop into a reliable neighbour, and a useful and well-informed fellow-citizen". This still remains the department's goal.
4. In any report dealing with social welfare in the Colony a number of basic facts about Hong Kong need to be emphasized, for it is against the background of these facts that the social worker must do his best (or more likely than not, her best) to tackle and solve the variety of social problems that arise.
5. Basic fact No. 1, which has already been specially emphasized in the Colony's Annual Report for 1956, is popula tion. Population in Hong Kong has always run ahead of the services available. This was true a hundred years ago, but it has never been so acute and apparently insoluble a problem as it has become today. The population is now more than 21 million, with a natural annual increase of about 70,000. Out of this total, it has been calculated that there are some 700,000 refugees from Mainland China who have entered the Colony since 1948.
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