$2. The Children's Centre in Shanghai Street, Kowloon, run by a Committee of which the Assistant Director is Chairman, provided food, lodging, primary education and vocational training for selected cases of problem children who were accepted at the centre on the recommenda- tion of Probation Officers and various welfare agencies. Over one hundred boys attended the centre daily; of these some forty were boarders. Films, talks, scouting activities, games and competitions were arranged regularly. It is hoped to establish in the near future a larger centre which will incorporate the facilities provided in the present centre and also improved facilities for training, particularly for older boys, who will be given occupational training in carpentry, tailoring, shoe-making and leather-work.
53. Castle Peak Boys' Home, the only Approved School in the Colony, accommodated one hundred boys sent under Court Orders for periods varying from two to five years. The Home provides primary education and training in tailoring, shoe-making, leatherwork, carpentry and rattan work as well as opportunities for gardening and pig rearing. The Home, which has been under the management of the Salvation Army since 1953, was to be taken over by the Probation Section of the Department, on behalf of Government, on 1st April, 1958. Kwai Chung Girls' Home, run by the Salvation Army, caters for girls referred by the Courts and provides primary education, needle work, rattan work and so on. As in previous years the Home was only partly full owing to the paucity of crime amongst girls in the Colony.
CHAPTER X
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
54. The strain on existing resources imposed by the influx of refugees and the large natural increase in the population has hindered the development of social services. A proportion of the people of Hong Kong are unable to secure employment, or at least to earn enough to support their families, with the result that public assistance agencies have to meet a variety of needs arising from different degrees of poverty.
55. The most elementary form of need is for food. The six welfare centres run by the Relief Section of the Department continued to provide free cooked meals or dry rations for the unemployed and needy, the aged and infirm and for widows with dependent children. The total number of families on the relief roll was 8,345 as compared with 3,600
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