Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1965-1966 — Page 16

The first centre at Wong Tai Sin Estate near the Airport is now six years old; the second is in the industrial town of Tsuen Wan; the third was opened in 1964 at Kwun Tong and the fourth at Tai Hang Tung was opened by the Governor in March. His Excellency Sir David TRENCH made an important speech on this occasion; since it says with authority much that is relevant and vital to this chapter, his speech is reprinted at Appendix 7. It is likely that future community centres will be built to a different pattern, arising out of experience with the present design. Interdepartmental discussions are going ahead on the planning at this

moment.

13 At the Wong Tai Sin, Tsuen Wan and Tai Hang Tung Centres, the Maryknoll Sisters, the Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association and the Lutheran World Service respectively provide a day nursery for two hundred children between the ages of two and six who need care while their parents are at work; the British Com- monwealth Save the Children Fund provides a Play Centre for six hundred children at Kwun Tong; the Chinese Young Men's Christian Association organizes a variety of group activities for young people in the Wong Tai Sin and Tsuen Wan centres, eighty or more of whom come together every evening for dancing or sports or to develop other interests or skills. Practical training classes are run in the repairing of electrical appliances, domestic equipment and motor cars by the Hong Kong Council of Practical Training Centres at the Wong Tai Sin Centre; these courses lead to ready employment, and at any one time three hundred boys aged 15 or over are being trained. At Tsuen Wan, Lutheran World Service provides similar facilities in carpentry, me- chanics, tailoring and typing for one hundred young people of 16 years or over. The Hong Kong Family Welfare Society provides casework services at community centres and at the two social centres mentioned below. The department is responsible for the general management of the centres, each of which has a public library of twenty-five thousand volumes, nearly all Chinese, as well as periodicals and newspapers, this amenity is highly valued by children and adults alike, attracting up to a thousand users a day and serving people who cannot or do not use the Urban Council's public library services. The department is also responsible for having directly set up or organized a great variety of men's and women's clubs, youths' and children's clubs, interest groups and other activities in such forms as Chinese music circles, photographic clubs, competitions, exhibitions, concerts, Chinese operas, film shows, Chinese boxing, judo, sports, painting and calligraphy groups and many

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