Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1964-1965 — Page 81

APPENDIX 9

(See paragraph 52)

SPEECH MADE BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR AT

THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE ABERDEEN SOCIAL AND

VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION CENTRE ON 4 JUNE 1964

"This Centre is the first important institution that I shall have had the pleasure of opening as Governor, and I am delighted to think that its purpose is one that must appeal to everybody. All of us feel distress at the plight of the handicapped in our midst, and must welcome any measures which will help some at least of our more vulnerable citizens to live useful and happy lives.

This, as its name implies, is a Rehabilitation Centre. The concept of rehabilitation is still fairly new in the world, but is now rapidly gaining general acceptance. The highly profes- sional social worker of 1964 no longer thinks in terms of the dole and the soup kitchen, but altogether more constructively. The ideals of rehabilitation start from the assumption- which has been abundantly proved to be correct--that all but a very few handicapped persons can be helped to a greater or lesser degree to help themselves, and to take up again some place in society to the great benefit of themselves and the community at large. Many, indeed, who might otherwise have been left helpless, can with the aid of the new techniques now available be restored to full and active working lives. Thus any attempts to rehabilitate the temporarily helpless, instead of allowing them to degenerate in the older forms of cus- todial home, is not merely a work of charity but is sound common sense.

Here in Hong Kong, rehabilitation is highly relevant to the type of society which we have developed. Industry and urbanization have meant ever more accidents-more factory accidents, more traffic accidents, and more accidents in mechanized homes. We are grow- ing more aware too of the effect of the stresses and strains of a modern overcrowded society on mental health. Moreover, migration has intensified the disrupting effects of industrial- ization and urbanization and, as a result, the traditional system is tending to break up. The unfortunate can fall back on their families for help less and less confidently or indeed not at all, and in consequence they are at the greatest disadvantage in a highly competitive social structure. We must remember too that educated opinion now largely measures the level of social progress in a country by the effectiveness and modernity of the standards of care which it gives to its vulnerable classes--lonely old people, the simple minded, the injured, cripples, orphans and the like. For all these reasons, therefore, it is particularly important that our rehabilitation services should not lag, and it is gratifying that the concept of rehabilitation should now have taken such firm root in our thinking on social problems. In human terms, the provision of these new services means that the published statistics and news reports of the handicapped; of accidents and injuries; and of the mentally disturbed; need no longer be treated as the sad records of so much human capital lost and written off. Hong Kong is showing its determination that its people-one of its few natural resources should, if disabled, be restored to as useful a life as possible and thus continue to help both themselves and the economy instead of merely becoming a burden.

The forms of disability from which the handicapped may suffer are many and various, and success in this field accordingly calls for the application of a number of different techniques; medical, social and vocational; as well as different types of institution in which to practise them. All who are directly concerned with the handicapped here in Hong Kong are now moving towards a closer co-ordination of the various rehabilitation services which is as it should be. The co-ordination which is needed is perhaps less a matter for any admin- istrative re-arrangement than it is for providing opportunities for the ready exchange of

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