ENG-1969 — Page 208

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SOCIAL WELFARE

welfare organisations, the Congregation of Sisters of the Good Shep- herd and the Po Leung Kuk, and also by the department's two day-training centres.

In the field of rehabilitation the aim of the department is to give disabled people, where possible, the opportunity of becoming independent and self-supporting members of the community. This generally involves three things: treatment to help the disabled to adjust to their disabilities; vocational training to encourage them to make the fullest possible use of their residual skills and their restora- tion to society through placement in remunerative employment or appropriate schooling. Rehabilitation services are provided through 19 centres and institutions and are supplemented by the work of more than a dozen voluntary welfare organisations. The continuing expansion of these services was marked by the opening during the year of the department's Kai Nang Training Centre and Hostel, and the Po Leung Kuk's annex for mentally retarded children. Various improvements were made to existing rehabilitation insti- tutions. Success in rehabilitating the disabled can be gauged by the department's success in getting them jobs. During the year suitable employment was found for 210 persons out of 270 applying for jobs.

During the year 59 major and minor disasters, resulting from rainstorms, typhoons, fires, shipwrecks and the closure of dangerous buildings, etc, rendered some 11,120 persons homeless and destitute. The department provided emergency relief in the form of hot meals and temporary shelter as well as financial aid under the Community Relief Trust Fund, from which payments amounting to $766,983.83 were made.

One of the most important developments of the year was a review of policy for Government's programme of public assistance. Con- sideration is being given to the possibility of changing the present scheme of public assistance, which is based largely on the issue of dry rations to needy families with cash assistance in limited special cases only, to a scheme for cash payments directed towards enabling needy families to maintain a minimum subsistence level.

The first estate welfare building was opened in the Ham Tin Resettlement Estate in January, the second in Shek Lei Resettlement