persons and into running a free residential relief camp at Matauchung in Kowloon, and another assisted camp at Morrison Hill in Hong Kong. During the year 1948 - 49 all the recipients of free meals at the Feeding Centres were screened and all but genuinely unemployed persons eliminated. Children's clubs and vocational training activities were also introduced, and a number of experiments in minor public services were tried out. Funds were raised for replacing four of the Free Feeding Centres' dilapidated matsheds with cleaner and more efficient wooden huts, and a fifth Centre was transferred to the New Social Welfare Office quarters in Happy Valley. Space was made available at all centres for use by voluntary organizations, when required. Before the end of 1948 the change of these Centres' designations from "Free Feeding Centres" to "Welfare Centres" had been more than justified.
47. In the three years that followed the Relief Section took further steps to ensure that persons over 16 years of age who received any free meals or other help were genuinely unemployable Hong Kong residents. The daily average number of persons attending for free meals was again cut from over 2,000 in April, 1948 to about 1,200 in March, 1951. At the same time further experiments were made in social work of a more constructive nature, although the Welfare Centres' very small staffs were deliberately not enlarged. One such experi- ment, in the field of Community Development, is described separately in Chapter XVI whilst another is dealt with under Suicides in Chapter XIII. A combination of Citizens' Advice Bureaux, community work, and general casework was provided through free letter-writing services, arranging musical pro- grammes, attempts, sometimes successful, to find work for the unemployed, free repatriation of stranded destitutes, the setting up of clearing centres or Headquarters for emergency relief work, aid to the sick poor in getting suitable medical atten- tion, and the handling of numerous miscellaneous inquiries and minor family cases.
Statistical returns are given in Appendix 8.
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