Sessional_Paper_1930 — Page 63

APPENDIX X.

COLOMBO MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUNDS.

1. The movement was started by Mr. R. W. Byrde, Mayor, at the end of 1916 and in February, 1917, the Council voted Rs. 2500/- to cover the following:-

Apparatus and equipment for games Salary of Instructor for one year. Contingencies

Rs. 1100/- 1200/- 200/-

J

Rs. 2500/-

An Instructor was appointed on Rs. 100/- a month and later on the Council sanctioned a fee of Rs. 50/- a month to be paid to Mr. Cammack of the Y.M.C.A. for supervising the playground work and instructing the Playground Instructor. Price Park in the Pettah was the first playground opened.

2. Since then the movement has increased and at the present time there are nine playgrounds in various parts of the City, mostly in a portion of existing parks though some have been specially constructed, e.g. one on the foreshore of Watersmeet and an- other on land bought and filled in for the purpose in Jampettah Street.

3. The Staff at present consists of a Chief Playground Instructor, who is the original playground Instructor since promoted, who was in 1927 placed on the step Rs. 2100/- a year in a new scale which rises to Rs. 3180/- a year by increments of Rs. 120/- a year. He was also granted a Motorcycle and Side-car Allowance of Rs. 900/- a year.

4. There are five other full time Instructors whose pay rises from Rs. 1200/- to Rs. 2400/- by annual increments of Rs. 60/-. They draw a rickshaw allowance of Rs. 35/- a month.

5. There are four part-time Instructors who attend their playgrounds between 4 and 6.30 p.m. daily for Rs. 50/- a month. Two of these are ladies who attend to the two playgrounds for girls included in the above nine.

6. The Y.M.C.A. Royapet House, Royapet, Madras, has a department of Physical Training and Health Education which conducts courses of instruction in physical training and games of 3, 6 or 12 months duration. They have trained a large number of In- structors in India and several of our Instructors in Colombo have been sent there for one or other of their courses.

7. The playgrounds though available all day are actually chiefly used after 4 p.m. when the Instructors attend in order to organize football, volleyball, basketball and such other games as there may be room for. They also see that the smaller children have a fair share of the swings, see-saws and giant strides. The full time Instructors are also ex- pected to get into touch with the children in their homes to encourage them to attend the playgrounds, to organize football clubs, to try and find employment for them as they grow up, to get them out of scrapes and generally to do what they can for them. This side of the work requires and is capable of considerable development. An off-shoot of the playground movement is the City Football League of bare-footers which consists of something like 3000 members and some 30 or 40 clubs. The League matches are very popular and attract large crowds. They are chiefly played on Saturday afternoons or Sundays as the players are chiefly youths who are employed during the week. There is also a Juvenile League for the younger boys and various shields and cups have been pre- sented for these Leagues and also for the Volley Ball League.

8. I induced the Girl Guides to start the girls' playgrounds which they did by visiting the homes and inducing the girls to attend. When each got started a part time Instructress was appointed to take over the work and to be present every day. Recently, as the work in one such playground flagged somewhat, I have got the Girl Guides to visit it once or twice a week to buck it up and to create a fresh interest and new ideas.