preparations were completed for a preliminary survey to provide ... sub-committee with information on the numbers and circumstances of the deaf in the Colony and existing services for their medical care, education and training. With the establishment of a branch school in Kowloon by the Overseas Chinese School for Deaf and Dumb primary school education is now provided for a total of about 200 deaf children. Of this number slightly more than half are boarders at the Hong Kong School for the Deaf, which uses the oral method of instruction rather than manual signs. A workshop, which will provide vocational training in carpentry, rattan weaving and printing in this school, was completed in December 1957. In the same month the Rotary Club of Hong Kong Island East formally took over the building site of the proposed Victoria Park School for the Deaf which is planned to cater for about 180 day pupils.
68. The most important event in the field of blind welfare was the visit to the Colony from 10th to 14th March, 1958 of Mr. John F. Wilson, O.B.E., Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. Mr. Wilson undertook to recommend that an experienced member of the Commonwealth Society's staff should be seconded to Hong Kong for a period of about 24 years to act as the executive officer of the Hong Kong Society for the Blind with a view to setting up a work- shop for the blind, and as adviser to Government in expanding present services. By the end of March 1958, 1,394 blind persons had been registered by the blind welfare unit of the Special Welfare Services Section in co-operation with the Government ophthalmic service. Two hundred cases found to be in need were provided with free meals or dry rations. A total of 125 blind people were given instruction in simple braille and handicrafts in six clubs. Plans were in hand for the setting up, in conjunction with the Hong Kong Society for the Blind, of a vocational training centre, where machine sewing and rattan weaving would be taught. In September 1957, the Music Training Centre for the Blind, sponsored by the Hong Kong Ophthalmological Society, was opened and took in sixteen pupils. The Ebenezer Home and School for the Blind and the Canossa Home for the Blind (formerly known as the Honeyville Home) continued to provide special education for ninety six and twenty blind children respectively. The latter sent a member of staff to the United Kingdom for training.
69. Mental defectives remain almost the only handicapped group for whom no special facilities have so far been provided. There are now about one hundred known cases of mentally deficient children, who are
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