run by voluntary bodies, not for profit. But the capacity of all the day nurseries and play centres was under 2,500-still very far from adequate to provide for every child who needed this form of care.
27. The Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children opened a new infant welfare centre at Ma Tau Chung during the year. This brought to six the number of centres where the Society provides proper food for babies up to 18 months old and teaches mothers how to look after their young children. The Society also runs three creches where undernourished babies are nursed back to health.
28. The year saw a development in relations between the Child Welfare Section of the Department and a number of voluntary organi- zations and institutions; in the case of the Church of Christ in China, the St. Thomas Nursery, the American Friends Service Committee, the Home of Onesiphorous and the Lutheran World Service liaison was established for the first time.
29. At the end of March 1961, the total number of babies and children in residential homes was 2,565, a decrease of 53 over the previous year, which left 195 vacancies in these institutions. This is a healthy sign, suggesting that fewer children are falling out of family care and becoming a charge on voluntary agencies or the public purse; but there is no assurance that the trend will continue. More than 600 of the children in the care of the Department were admitted to various children homes. The great majority entered the Po Leung Kuk, a Chinese institution established in 1878 as a place of refuge for children (See Appendix 6); the Superintendent continued to be seconded from the departmental staff at the request of the Kuk Committee. A list of the institutions maintaining liaison with the Child Welfare Section is at Appendix 7.
CHAPTER V
YOUTH WELFARE
30. Although expansion in the Education Department's primary school programme is continuing at a rapid pace, the number of children who cannot find a place in a primary school is still in the neighbour- hood of 125,000. And when home for such children is likely to be only a room in a resettlement estate, a bedspace in a crowded tenement or perhaps a corner of a gloomy staircase, the lure of the streets must be very strong. It is towards getting them off the streets, providing them with proper recreation and informal education and giving them a more
8
CC
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.