not get into school; but since it is now so very much easier for the average child to enter a primary school, more energy can be turned to the highly constructive work- with its self-consciously 'prophylactic' value — of creating outlets for the energies of the much more inflammable group of young people between 14 and 21 years of age.
21. The Youth Welfare Section of the Department, when performing its titular functions, tries therefore to stimulate new and improved services. Typical of its own efforts are its 'groups' at the Community and Social Centres. To follow on the establishment of six such centres, a separate Youth Centre was opened in November at Sham Shui Po, mainly for young people of that area. By March the Centre was already operating a youth club, two secondary school students' clubs (consisting of well over two hundred members) and a Girl Guide Company.
22. Much time and thought has been given in recent years to assisting in the establishment and development of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. The Federation itself has now set up twelve youth centres and there are twenty youth groups under the sponsorship of churches and other bodies which are affiliated to it; the total membership of these is about three thousand. It is much to be hoped that this Federation will continue to develop in virile fashion, because its potential value can hardly be exaggerated; the mushroom growth of industrial city life can so easily undermine the moral defences of high-spirited youngsters, and youth groups can do so much positive and preventive work with the ‘junior citizens' of Hong Kong.
23. The co-ordination and promotion of all youth welfare activities has for several years been the function of the Hong Kong Conference of Youth Organizations, which is now an incorporated body in Hong Kong. It is a consultative body made up of twenty-two voluntary youth agencies and three Government Departments (Education, Prisons and Social Welfare). It also runs one youth camp itself.
24. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme has now beyond question proved its appeal to young people of Hong Kong of all descriptions. Its value lies in its challenge to their willingness to devote their own time to discovering the practical bounds of their own initiative, fitness and skill. These bounds are much wider than many originally thought. About seven hundred boys are already taking part in the scheme, from fifty different schools or groups based informally on an existing institution or class. The Operating Committee for Hong Kong is planning to attract
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