Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 24

conducted a more successful fund-raising campaign for further develop- ment and produced a plan for progressive development to be carried out over a period of five years. The Girl Guides Association continues to develop on sound lines, and in February, Lady TRENCH opened their new Headquarters' buildings towards the construction of which the Lotteries Fund contributed $350,000. The Association now has three thousand two hundred and fifteen members.

24. The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association provides recreation, informal education and character-training for several thousands of children between the ages of 8 and 14. The association has over five thousand, nine hundred members in a hundred and fifty-three clubs which it runs directly, and there are almost another four thousand, eight hundred members in forty-seven affiliated clubs. Caritas served four thousand, five hundred youngsters in its Youth Welfare Centre on Cheung Chau Island, the Lions-YMCA Camp at Junk Bay gave week- long holidays to over three thousand children, the Children's Playground Association's Camp at Silver Mine Bay was used by two thousand five hundred and the Federation of Youth Groups Youth Training Camp at Tai Mong Tsai, which was opened in January 1966, served two thousand two hundred and sixty-two. The Methodist Camp at Silver Mine Bay has recently been completed and other camps are under planning by the Chinese YMCA and YWCA. Of quite a different nature is the Youth Centre which the Federation of Youth Groups is planning to establish in the heart of the long-established and very crowded area of Yau Ma Tei in the hope of reaching young factory workers and apprentices who have not so far been reached partly because of a lack of facilities and partly perhaps because of lack of any partic- ular inclination to participate in organized group activities. Yau Ma Tei is an area which particularly lacks these and other facilities, and plans have been laid to develop in this area a complex which may include a community centre, swimming pool, children's playground and a public recreational area. In areas like Yau Ma Tei and other highly developed areas it is not so much money or staff that constitute the main problems in development although they are always difficult enough-but land.

25. An activity which is probably more popular than any other with Hong Kong children is reading. During the year the two libraries of the Children's Playground Association attracted nearly three hundred thousand visitors and well over forty thousand books were borrowed. The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association's twelve children's libraries

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