Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1960-1961 — Page 21

for three hostels for discharged prisoners. The staff of the Society paid 226 visits to prisons and 1,811 visits to discharged prisoners during the year.

CHAPTER IX

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

55. The improved economic conditions which prevailed in the Colony during the year were instrumental in reducing the number of destitutes seeking assistance from the Department. This reduction was reflected in a drop in the average number of cooked meals distributed every day from 4,244 during 1959-60 to 3,511. However, the average number of portions of dry rations distributed regularly rose slightly, from 5,947 during the previous year to 6,046.

56. While the ingredients for cooked meals and dry rations are the same, dry rations provide enough for two meals a day as against only one cooked meal a day. Recipients of dry rations were also supplied with firewood to do their own cooking. Dry rations were issued, in quantities sufficient for a week at a time, mainly to the aged, the physically handicapped and widows with children, while some em- ployees retrenched from H.M. Dockyard and the Armed Services also received rations while they searched for other work. A table showing the average cost of both cooked meals and dry rations, with their ingredients, is at Appendix 13.

57. The distribution of cooked food and dry rations was carried out at the six welfare centres run by the Relief Section of the Department. Other services performed at the centres included writing letters for illiterates, helping the needy to obtain cash grants or loans from voluntary welfare organizations, finding accommodation in special cases of hardship, recommending free medical treatment for the poor and helping deserving cases to obtain fixed pitch hawker licences. Details are at Appendix 14.

58. Relief feeding on a large scale was also carried out by five voluntary agencies-Catholic Relief Services, Church World Service, C.A.R.E., the Lutheran World Federation and the Seventh Day Ad- ventist Welfare Service. During the year they received some 32,280 short tons of surplus American food for distribution in Hong Kong and a very large number of needy people benefited by periodic distribu- tion of these supplementary foodstuffs. Some of the food items, like

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