Youth Groups has set up twenty youth centres and there are twenty affiliated youth groups under the sponsorship of churches and other bodies; the total membership of these is over six thousand. The Federation continued to provide facilities for training at their Outdoor Training Camp at Tai Mong Tsai. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, which is a challenge to young people to meet the standards set for their balanced development as individuals, is now familiar to the young people of Hong Kong. Its value lies in the continuous genuine efforts of youths to discover and to develop their own initiative, fitness and skill; about 1,400 boys and girls have already taken part in the Scheme. The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association provides recreation, informal education, and character training for children between the ages of eight and fourteen. It has more than twelve thousand members in 96 clubs and fourteen craft centres and forty-five other affiliated clubs. It also operates fifteen children's libraries.
33. The Scouts Association Hong Kong Branch continues to expand its work and has embarked on a five-year plan of development, which involves the training of leaders, the development of new units, and the creation of more opportunities for service to others. It has also undertaken a series of recreational programmes open to non-scouts. The Association has now over fifteen thousand members aged from seven to twenty. The Girl Guides Association continues to develop with some five thousand members.
34. The Children's Playground Association concentrates on the provision of recreational facilities and activities for young people. It continues to provide organized recreation and library facilities at both the Southorn and Macpherson centres for children and youth. Similar activities have also been carried out in the Rotary Youth Centre of the Department at Fanling. Its Silvermine Bay Holiday Camp con- tinues to be a popular resort for some 3,000 children each year. Caritas operates 5 social centres in the urban areas as well as in the New Territories. Youth service is also provided at other social centres.
35. The Youth and Children's Division of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, the co-ordinating body of 25 voluntary youth agencies, had another busy year. In addition to the co-ordination of the 1968 Colony-wide summer programme of activities in which some 445,000 young people and children are estimated to have taken part, it launched 'Project 100' in the form of a mobile youth centre, the vehicle itself being a gift from a group of young people in British Columbia. The
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