adult help and guidance. Another youth centre at Fanling, New Territories, caters to young people living in the rural areas. A youth hostel adjacent to it provides simple accommodation, cooking and dining facilities for sixty boys and girls. Being the only youth centre in the area, it has introduced new forms of organized youth activities and has started to stimulate understanding and greater participation in the affairs of the area. During 1968, the hostel was used by 2,289 persons. The Tsuen Wan Youth Camp operated by the Division and providing accommodation for groups of about fifty boys and girls continued to be used by youth organizations as a base for out-door training, expeditions, and over-night camping. During the past year 3,284 people used the camp to enjoy the amenities of the countryside.
30. An important service to youth was the Division's contribution to the Colony-wide programme of activities during the summer vacation. The programme includes the organization of recreational activities, the formation of groups engaged in various types of interests and hobbies, and the enrolment of voluntary service groups for the performance of specific tasks. The main object of these activities is to provide young people during their vacation in summer with the opportunity to be healthily and usefully engaged in various ways, thus avoiding the boredom and frustration of having nothing constructive to do.
31. While this service is in itself beneficial to young people for reasons already given it also produced very desirable results. On the completion of the 1968 summer programme fifteen groups, consisting altogether of 700 young persons, decided to further their respective common interest not only by remaining as interest groups but by offering to assist in the organization of the following summer's activities. The summer programme has thus given rise to the formation of self-directing or 'self-programming' youth groups which elect their own leaders and organize their own activities. It follows that a new approach to youth work is needed: with the formation of these groups an officer of the Division has been appointed to liaise with them and to offer them any guidance and assistance they may require.
THE VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
32. The department continued its efforts through financial and other forms of assistance to support the development of services provided by youth welfare agencies. The Hong Kong Federation of
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