CHAPTER V
FAMILY AND CHILD WELFARE
It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do,
SCHOPENHAUER
42 The problem of Hong Kong may be its people, but those that are most obvious to the casual eye are its children. Most Hong Kong mothers are working women, and children cannot be taken to most factories or other work-places; yet there are often no older relatives at home who can stay and look after children below school age. Urban dwellings are utterly different from village communities. For this reason the chief child welfare need in Hong Kong, apart from the special needs of orphan or disabled children, is increasingly recognized to be more day care centres where little children may be looked after. At present there are fifty seven non-profit-making nurseries and sixteen play centres, some sponsored by international agencies but most of them run by Hong Kong organizations. Eleven nurseries and two play centres were opened during the year; more than thirteen thousand places are now provided in these day care centres, compared with only about three thousand four years ago. But even if one adds to this the profit-making day nurseries and more than forty-six thousand places in kindergarten schools, which are the concern of the Education Department, it is obvious that the needs are still far from being met. Fifty-seven day care centres have been equipped by UNICEF since 1962. Without this UNICEF backing, which the public at large does not yet seem to recognize, day care of children aged from 2 to 6 could hardly have expanded so rapidly. The department has helped organizations capable of running new day nurseries efficiently, by supporting grants of land or premises, or in limited cases by financial subvention where essential, and by training staff.
43 With the increase in recent years of statutory adoption into families and the smaller number of children now being abandoned, the Child Welfare Section of the department is able to concentrate first on promoting day care and secondly on arranging short-term residential care of children whose families find themselves temporarily unable to look after them properly; but there will always be a substantial number of children who, because of disability or otherwise, are unsuitable for adoption and need long-term institutional care. Efforts are of course
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