ENG-1988 — Page 305

PUBLIC ORDER

Civic Duties

253

The service is also very heavily committed to perform civic duties in normal times. During the year, adult volunteers helped to organise and provide crowd control, communication and marshalling services in charity fund-raising walks, government campaigns, charity drives and at other public functions.

Vietnamese Boat People

The CAS has gained considerable experience in managing refugee camps since the Vietnamese refugees first arrived in 1975. With the sudden increase of Vietnamese boat people into Hong Kong from April 1988 it was necessary to mobilise volunteers to assist in setting up, managing and administering new refugee centres. The CAS had direct responsibility for managing three centres at the Green Island Reception Centre, Harbour Reception Centre, and at the Argyle Camp IV Detention Centre. It also assisted in setting up the refugee centres in the San Yick Closed Centre and Erskine Camp Detention Centre, deploying 160 volunteers per day to manage the centres.

Service Training

Service training is divided into centralised courses and unit training in a wide variety of subjects, including counter disaster, first aid, fire fighting and conventional rescue.

Overseas training was organised for both permanent staff and volunteer officers. During the year, two officers were sent to the Australian Counter Disaster College in Victoria, and one officer to the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, for disaster management training and two officers to the United Kingdom for advanced mountain-rescue training.

Training Facilities

The CAS has two main training centres and two training camps. The two training centres located on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon, have rescue ranges with simulated smoke rooms and facilities for rescue from confined spaces, towers for practising rescue from height and classrooms for indoor instruction.

The 20-hectare training camp at Tsing Lung Tau, which incorporates an old Chinese village dating back 260 years was completely re-built several years ago and has now been furnished and equipped with farming equipment of the period. The camp facilities include a swimming pool, a jogging track, a rope initiative course, a soccer field, camping sites and a rescue range areas.

A new camp is being developed at Tai Tan, Sai Kung to provide training facilities for persons wishing to take part in all forms of waterborne activities, and will be ready by March 1989.

Cadet Corps

The Cadet Corps is organised into 28 units of boys and two units of girls located throughout the territory.

Cadets enter at the age of 12 to 14, and undergo a series of training courses, including training in basic mechanical and electrical engineering, carpentry and fibre-glassing, printing and book binding as well as photography and interior design. Training is also given in countryside preservation, fire fighting, first aid, crowd control psychology, road safety, rock climbing, orienteering, expeditions and trekking.

The cadets are also encouraged to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and during the year three cadets qualified for Gold Awards, 17 for Silver Awards and 90 for Bronze Awards.