39. The Division aims at stimulating and developing new and improved facilities for young people. It does this partly by the direct provision of services and partly by lending support and encouragement to the many voluntary agencies which are active in this field.
40. Typical of its direct provision of services are the children and youth groups run at community or social centres. There are normally about 1,000 active young members in each centre. The nature of groups varies according to the age and interests of the participants. Interest groups are designed to meet the specific interests of indi- viduals, whilst club groups are designed for social activities and uniformed groups for specific programmes. They are all directed towards the development of well adjusted individuals, who can be expected to become mature adults and contributing members of society. Besides the groups at community and social centres, two youth centres, at Sham Shui Po and Fanling, are concurrently providing opportunities for young people to participate in group activities. Like those in community and social centres, the activities include a wide range of interests such as Chinese boxing, judo, lion dances, pop music, social dances, painting etc. During 1970, 2,484 young people used the Division's youth camp at Tsuen Wan and 3,262 were accom- modated at the Fanling Rotary Youth Hostel.
SUMMER PROGRAMMES
41. An important service to youth has been the Division's con- tribution to the Colony-wide programme of activities during the summer vacation. These programmes help to provide young people during their summer vacation with the opportunity to use their leisure wisely and usefully. The Division's first endeavour at providing such activities for young people during the summer of 1965 attracted an attendance of 2,312 youth and children. In 1970, there were 356 activities with a total participation of 90,298 youth and children. Over 1,460 volun- teers were recruited, trained and assigned to work in centres, children's clubs, expeditions and other activities. The summer programme has expanded to involve other government departments and voluntary welfare agencies in order to cater for more young people and children during the summer vacation. 15 District Youth and Recreation Co- ordinating Committees were formed to co-ordinate their own summer programmes and so avoid the overlapping of services and at the same time benefit more children and youth. (See Appendix 24).
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