CHAPTER X
THE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY HANDICAPPED
67. In the field of welfare of the handicapped, which is the respon- sibility of the Special Welfare Services Section of the Department, steady progress was made in training and rehabilitation. By the end of the year, 7,136 handicapped people were registered with the Department, as against 5,857 at the end of the previous year. Emphasis is being increas- ingly placed upon these aims, rather than upon relief or institutional care alone, in a concerted effort to assist and train the handicapped to regain their self-respect and to contribute to the community as produc- tive citizens.
The Blind
68. It was perhaps in the field of blind welfare that most headway was made. 520 blind persons were added to the register, including 40 discovered as a result of the second survey conducted in the New Territories jointly by the Department and the Hong Kong Society for the Blind, bringing the total up to 3,226. In the New Territories also, a start was made by officers of the Blind Welfare Unit in teaching a trade or craft to 20 blind people in their homes, while the Society assisted, through its 'home-worker' scheme, in disposing of some of the products, such as rattan or plastic string goods made by them. It is encouraging to be able to record that 14 blind persons were found jobs during the year, mostly as machine operators in factories or as sanitary labourers in resettlement estates. A new club for the blind, the ninth now in operation, was opened by the Department at the Princess Alexandra Community Centre in Tsuen Wan; in these clubs, a total of some 330 blind persons are assisted to adjust themselves to their affliction and set on the road to overcoming it for purposes of normal life, so far as is feasible. The Department assisted the Society to open a second hostel for the blind in first floor rooms at the Wong Tai Sin Resettlement Estate. At the seven vocational training and sheltered employment centres which the Society operates, some 180 blind trainees and workers continued their training in machine-sewing, carpentry, telephony, broom and brush making, box-mending, rattan weaving and
so on.
69. Among the most important developments of the year were the generous donation to the Society by the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club of $1 million with which to build a factory for 200 blind workers, and
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