crowded housing conditions and squatter areas. In 1945, there were only 650,000 people in Hong Kong, and now the population approaches four million. Since 1954 the government resettlement programme has housed over one million people; and there are plans which, if realized, will bring the resettlement population to about 1.6 million by 1971.
19. Such a creation of social communities out of an already heterogeneous amalgam of people from diverse backgrounds has aggravated the question of social cohesion and identification to the immediate community in which they live. Families rehoused in this way may have little feeling of neighbourliness towards those next door, let alone feelings towards the community as a whole. In the older parts of the twin cities on either side of the harbour, where overcrowding is the rule rather than the exception, the basic situation is not much different. Social consciousness and feelings of responsibility towards the community at large are the essential elements for the development of responsible citizenship and of coherent communities.
THE WORK OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL CENTRES
20. The Group and Community Work Division works towards the broad aim of developing more integrated communities, by instilling in their members a better appreciation of common values and a sense of civic responsibility. The Division tries to achieve this aim through the provision of eight community, social and youth centres which are situated mainly in the resettlement estates and new towns. Of the community centres the first at Wong Tai Sin is now nine years old; the second is in the industrial town of Tsuen Wan; the third was opened in 1964 at Kwun Tong; the fourth at Tai Hang Tung in March 1966. The fifth is being built in Yuen Long with a grant from the Lotteries Fund while planning is in progress for a sixth at Chai Wan. The work of these centres is basically threefold: first, the provision of social welfare services designed to meet some of the needs of people living in the area and to bring them together; second, the formation of groups sharing common interests, through which participants may develop a sense of responsibility, initially to the group and later to the community to which they belong; third, the encouragement of activities which are designed to weld divergent groups into a more integrated community.
21. The welfare services provided in each centre include a day nursery, a library, recreational facilities, vocational training classes,
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