Page 19 - Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity

VII. WORK OF AUXILIARY ORGANIZATIONS
1. Hongkong Christian Welfare & R elief Council (Cont’ d)

The Practical Training Centre of the Churches The Practical Training Centre
of the Churches, now in its
third school year, is an attempt to make available to underprivileged young
people a balanced education in which the s k ill to use tools and the basic
knowledge of a trade are combined with a knowledge of mathematics, elememtary
physics, and English.

Training has been given to 1,470 pupils to date, and the current enrolment
is sligh tly over 500. Most are boys between 15 and 18 years of age, but there
are evening classes fo r older pupils, and a special class fo r fishermen.

There is a choice of five technical subjects - automobile repair, electri-
cal appliances and domestic equipment, refrigerator and airconditioning plant,
commercial and spray painting, and fishing boat diesel engine maintenance -
and combined with the fir s t four of these subjects are classes in English,
Chinese, methematics, e lementary science, and technical drawing.

Agricultural Resettlement The rural and forestry resettlement programme of
the Council on Chu Lap Kok island has been increased
during 1962 to six settlements and over 100 settlers, a ll of whom are now
housed in stone cottages. The policy of the scheme is to start the settlers
with subsidies and progressively to reduce these to nothing, and at the end
of the year two thirds of the settlers were already independent and fu lly
supporting themselves.

The buildings on the island comprise a community centre and school,
fifteen stone houses, and pigsty buildings, six small dams, four pipelines,
a children’ s playground in front of the community centre, and a stone pier.
Irrigation remained the biggest problem and two new pipelines were laid
and reservoirs constructed.

The favourite vegetable crops with the settlers are Chinese white cabbage,
kale, mustard, and radishes, a ll of which grew w ell, and Chinese green onion
in the winter which requires li t t le water.

Regular Sunday worship services are held in the church, and there are
weekly evening prayer meetings, Bible study, and a Women's Fellowship, and
once in every month there is a v is it from an ordained minister to hold
Communion Service.

Plans are in hand for bringing more of the island under cu ltiv ation and
for a fishing ‘settlement on the shore.

Self Help Projects Committee This is a joint undertaking of the Council on
behalf of its members wereb y funds are raised
h
for the establishment or re-establishment of refugees in trades in which they
can make their livin g i f given the necessary start.

The one guiding consideration behind such help is that it must put a
man on his fee t: it must put him back where he was, earning his own livin g ,
before illn ess or catastrophe struck him. To do this work properly needs
the help of skilled caseworkers, and the Committee works through fiv e of
its member agencies whose sta ffs are trained for this work, namely the
Lutheran World Service, the Salvation Army, the American Presbyterian Case-
work Centre, Church World Service and the Methodist Committee for Overseas
R elief.

Drug Addicts Rehabilitation Committee Drug addiction in Hongkong is
caused by the social i l l s of
hunger, homelessness, and unemployment .

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