Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1957-1958 — Page 16

of them from the poorest families in Hong Kong. Many are alrea helping to support themselves and their families by begging or hawking or as shoe shine boys. The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association has enrolled over 6,500 of these children in 146 clubs which are either directly sponsored by, or affiliated to, the Association. Many of the Association's Clubs operate in the penthouses and enclosed flat roofs (handed over by the Government for this purpose) of multi-storey blocks in the six Resettlement Estates and ten new clubs were started there during the year; these Estates consist of large six or seven storey blocks, each housing about 2,400 people, built by Government since 1955 to rehouse squatters, largely recent immigrants; the total popula- tion of the six Estates was nearly 160,000 at the end of March 1958. Since the settlers have little or no community feeling, clubs in the Estates are of special value and great efforts have been made to expand in this direction.

30. Twenty five of the Clubs affiliated to the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association are entirely maintained and staffed by the Youth Welfare Section of the Department; the staff of the Section, under its Assistant Director, consists of four Youth Welfare Officers and fourteen Assistant Youth Welfare Officers, all except two of whom function as Club Leaders. The Clubs are operated on lines similar to those run by voluntary organizations; the ages of children range from eight to fifteen, or from sixteen to twenty in the Senior Clubs; all except the two Senior Clubs cater for both boys and girls, who are usually organized in separate groups; each Club meets for some two hours per day from Monday to Friday with Scouting and Guiding on Saturday mornings. A single Club Leader supervises the two Clubs held each morning at each place; the venue is usually a welfare centre, where one or more rooms are allocated for club work, but four Clubs are held on roof-tops in Resettlement Estates and two in specially built premises in a Resettlement Cottage Area. Leaders are expected to keep case records of members and are specially encouraged to devote as much time as possible out of Club hours to visiting the children and their parents in their homes. Parents' evenings are held periodically at the clubs, in order to emphasize the importance of family life in the development of the children. Statistics, with special reference to the Departmental clubs, will be found at Appendix 8.

31. As in previous years inter-club competitions in story telling, singing, dancing, music and drama were organized by the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association, culminating in two concerts given to more

10