ENG-1962 — Page 237

SOCIAL WELFARE

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between the ages of 14 and 19 through a balanced programme of leisure time activities. A voluntary organization in Britain spon- sored a gold award winner to come to Hong Kong to assist in the initial running of the scheme and by the close of the year four boys were working toward the gold badge and 64 toward the silver badge. No schemes for girls operate in Hong Kong at present, but plans are in hand to introduce them.

Projects aimed at the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents also moved ahead, further increasing the demand for trained staff. A new probation remand home at Begonia Road, Kowloon, with a capacity of 170, was nearing completion at the end of the year and will relieve the heavy pressure being placed on correctional insti- tutions by the Courts. Plans were also made for a second approved school for juvenile offenders to supplement the existing one at Castle Peak, which was itself extended to permit an intake of 30 additional boys. A new boys' centre was built in Kowloon to replace the existing children's centre at Shanghai Street and was due to open early in the new year. It will have accommodation for 140 boys. The increasing use of the probation service as a positive and constructive method of treatment for young offenders was a source of both encouragement and trial for the probation section. In spite of the recruitment of six new probation officers the individual caseloads of the staff continued to be heavy. Another important development was a working party report into various aspects of the care and treatment of children in Hong Kong. This is now being studied by the Government.

The number of handicapped persons coming forward for registra- tion continued to mount. By the close of the year the figure had risen to 9,082, compared with 6,335 at the end of 1961. Con- sequently there was an increase in activities aimed at rehabilitating and restoring disabled persons as far as possible to social and economic usefulness. At Kwun Tong in September the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation opened a medical rehabilitation centre for the vocational assessment of handicapped persons. Its object is to restore them in as short a time as possible to gainful employ- ment through a concentrated programme of treatment. The Hong Kong Society for the Blind's new factory in Kowloon was nearing completion at the end of the year and when open will provide employment for 200 blind people. The Ebenezer School and Home