APPENDIX 7
(See paragraph 12)
OPENING OF TAI HANG TUNG COMMUNITY CENTRE
ADDRESS OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR, SIR DAVID TRENCH, KCMG, MC
"This is the third and last Community Centre to be built with the generous donations made by the people of Britain during World Refugee Year.
'Much has already been said about helping the people of a district to develop a community spirit, but, even so, some continue to ask what this is all about in practical and realistic
terms.
*Let me try to restate the purpose of this and other Centres in quite simple language.
"The community centre aims at bringing individual people together and giving them the chance to take part in the kinds of activity which interest them. It gives them a chance to test their powers and later perhaps to meet other needs, or to develop talents which they had not previously realized they had.
"People who may have lived busy lives as individuals, but who had no more to contribute to their neighbours, or to the local community, than resulted from having a job and a family, find in these Centres a creative opportunity, not only to enjoy themselves, but also to learn to apply themselves, with others, to broader pursuits and to develop a greater awareness of the other people living round them.
"The staff tries to reach people where they live, and to help them bring to the surface and deal effectively with, their own problems and interests,
"These problems relate to improvements in standards of sanitation and cleanliness, or to child care, or how to make good use of leisure time, or any one of a varied list of matters of prime concern to the individual.
"The community worker's task is to try to discover what are the most usual every day desires and interests of the people among whom they work and then to try to help them find or develop resources of their own with which to satisfy these needs.
"It is perhaps still not sufficiently appreciated that social workers do not set out to advise. Someone who is told what to do, may have to be told again and again.
"The only effective method is to try to help people into a position where they can make their own choices, based on knowledge and confidence. The chosen course is then more likely to be one that is followed with enthusiasm and success.
'Many examples could be quoted from the experience of the last four years to illustrate how people who use the existing community centres become more and more conscious of
life around them and increasingly show their willingness to work with other individuals and organizations for the good of their local community.
"To give just one such example: sustained campaigns to encourage people to keep the resettlement estates clean; organized by community groups based on the Community Centres, are certainly beginning to have an effect.
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