18. The need for stability in the community impinges at various points on the work of the Social Welfare Department, perhaps most conspicuously on that part of it which is concerned with community organization. It demands an extrovert, robust and imaginative approach; yet a practical understanding of the individual human mind, with all its quirks and foibles, is no less essential. No government or department can afford to forget that it is responsible for individual citizens and not for amorphous groups lacking in personal identity. Even the most junior members of the staff involved in community work must see the worth of the individual's contribution to the amalgam and must help each citizen to play this part in the development of a two way com- munication system between all levels of the people and all levels of Government which should in the end result in a healthier and more vital society.
CHAPTER III
YOUTH WELFARE
19. The original, limited, purpose of the Social Welfare Depart- ment's youth service was to provide some healthy activity for those children of 8 to 15 who could 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 creation of outlets for the energies of the inflammable group of young people between 14 and 21 years of age. The Youth Welfare Section of the department, when perform- ing its titular functions, tries therefore to stimulate new and improved facilities. It does this partly by direct provision of services and partly by lending support and encouragement to the many voluntary agen- cies which are active in this most important field. Typical of its own direct provision are its 'groups' at the community and social centres, but a separate youth centre also exists at Sham Shui Po, mainly for young people of that area, which provides four club groups, fifteen interest groups and two uniformed groups, with a total membership of six hundred boys and girls.
20. The department continued during the year its efforts, financially and otherwise, to support the development of services provided by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. The Federation itself has set up fifteen youth centres and there are ten affiliated youth groups under the sponsorship of churches and other bodies; the total member- ship of these is about three thousand. It is desirable that this federa- tion should continue in virile fashion, because its potential contribution
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