two uniformed groups, with a total membership of six hundred, boys and girls.
18 Much has been officially done in recent years to assist the establishment and development of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. The Federation itself has set up fifteen youth centres and there are sixteen affiliated youth groups under the sponsorship of churches and other bodies; the total membership of these is about three thousand. It is desirable that this federation should continue in virile fashion, because its potential contribution to minds and bodies can hardly be exaggerated; the pressures and pace of industrial city life undermine the defences of high-spirited youngsters who lack established moral instruc- tion, but youth groups can do much positive and preventive work with junior citizens. Until this year the co-ordination and promotion of all youth welfare activities had for several years been the function of the Hong Kong Conference of Youth Organizations, a consultative body made up of twenty-two voluntary youth agencies and three government departments (Education, Prisons and Social Welfare), which also ran a youth camp itself. In October the Conference held a Youth Festival which was officially opened by the Governor; the purpose was to make known the scope and variety of youth work undertaken in Hong Kong and the variety of opportunities offered to young people to spend their leisure in a constructive and enjoyable way. The conference has since voted its own dissolution and absorption into a new Youth and Chil- dren's Division of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, while handing its youth camp over to the Children's Playground Association.
19 The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme is now familiar to young people of Hong Kong of all descriptions. Its value lies in its challenge to their willingness to devote their own time to discovering the practical bounds of their own initiative, fitness and skill as indi- viduals. These bounds are much wider than many originally thought. About one thousand boys have already taken part in the scheme, from fifty different schools or groups based informally on an existing institu- tion or class. The Boys and Girls Operating Committees are attempting to attract young workers and others from a still wider field and the Girls Scheme is now available to all the girls in the Colony and over three hundred and sixty are already taking part. Various adult bodies are being pressed to take an interest in the scheme in order that some of their members might become leaders or instructors for the participat- ing boys and girls. A very different project, though confused with the Award Scheme in some minds, is the proposal by an enthusiastic body
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