and staff, amenities comparable to those in the bigger centres are pro- vided here also, for although the need for community development is most noticeable in the resettlement estates there are similar and other developmental needs in the more traditional rural townships and in the congested old urban districts.
38. Community development in urban areas is a comparatively new field of social work, no less in Hong Kong than elsewhere, although community organization is recognized in the social work profession as one of the three main social work methods. It is a responsibility which touches the activities of many departments of Government and the importance of this responsibility in a territory such as Hong Kong cannot be overstressed. It is relevant to any proposals for the greater participation of ordinary people in the determination of their own affairs. The aims and duties of the Social Welfare Department are an essential complement to those quasipolitical functions of the adminis- tration carried out by the New Territories Administration and the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. A community or social centre provides one focus for this work, but is not an end in itself. Social workers in the department are encouraged to use each centre as a base from which the resident neighbours may be visited and encouraged to take some part in a social activity. This is the network through which this depart- ment, stage by stage, helps residents to become citizens, to develop co- operative attitudes, to increase their capacity to work together and, by furthering their own particular interests, to serve the wider interests of the community. We are not however the only workers in this particular vineyard, although we are among the few who use the term 'commu- nity development'. There is scope for the development of overall co- ordination in this field if people are to be given the chance of working for the betterment of society through local participation.
39. The need for stability in the community impinges at various points on the work of the Social Welfare Department, perhaps most conspicuously on that part which is concerned with community organization. It demands an extrovert, robust and imaginative approach; yet a practical understanding of the individual human mind, with all its quirks and foibles, is no less essential. No government or department can afford to forget that it is responsible for individual citizens and not for amorphous groups lacking in personal identity. Even the most junior members of the staff involved in community work are encouraged to see the worth of the individual's contribution to the amalgam and
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