Missions of the Methodist Church, the American Friends Service Com- mittee and the Salvation Army respectively for day-to-day running. The Urban Services Department is playing its part in meeting the demand by providing library buildings in all the larger public parks and play- grounds. The first two libraries at Victoria Park and Argyle Street were completed in March and handed over to the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association to equip and run. The public library at the Wong Tai Sin Community Centre included a children's section and this was patronized by nearly 1,000 people every day, over half of them children. The Department's mobile library became increasingly popular with the children, as well as with the fishermen and farmers, of the New Territories. It served 24 areas and 18 schools regularly and attracted about 400 readers a day.
36. The Children's Playground Association continued to provide recreational amenities. The playgrounds attached to the War Memorial Centre and the Queen Elizabeth II Youth Centre were used extensively for miniature football and basket ball games which attracted regular audiences of 3,000 or 4,000. Some 174,000 children used the two indoor stadia attached to the centres for training and games during the year.
37. For children who attend school for part of the day only, two recreation centres were opened as an experiment by the Department at the Wong Tai Sin Community Centre; these offered organized games and other group activities for about 250 children a day. The Board of Missions of the Methodist Church undertook similar work on the roof top of Block X of the Wong Tai Sin resettlement estate for nearly 100 children. There is great scope for providing children with recreation when schools are obliged to operate two sessions and usually have little or no playground space.
CHAPTER VI
FAMILY WELFARE
38. In spite of the gradually improving housing situation and the more prosperous economic conditions in the Colony, the stresses and strains upon traditional family life are still many. About 20 per cent of the Colony's population continue to live in squatter conditions. Employment remains difficult to come by, except for trained workers or those who are young and adaptable; skills laboriously acquired are often brought to nought through technological advances, changes in the
10
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.