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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
Maria was in the care of the Department of Social Welfare at the Girls Homecraft Centre, York Hill, from 24 April until 28 July 1950.
Before the war, this had been a voluntary charitable institution for girls known as the Po Leung Kok. From July 1948, it became a government institution directly administered by the Social Welfare Department.
It was situated on open ground at the top of York Hill, an eminence next to Pearl's Hill in the City area, approached by turning right at the top of Chin Swee Road. The buildings (demolished in the sixties and replaced by a school) were in four groups behind each other on sloping ground. Though old, they were in reasonable repair, airy and roomy, with plenty of space for exercise, recreation, gardening and animal husbandry.
Immediately after the war, Singapore was short of specialized homes for young people needing residential care. York Hill, as it was commonly known, was one of the attempted remedies. Inevitably in the circumstances of the time, it had to tackle a wide range of functions. It was gazetted as a Remand Home and a Place of Safety.
Apart from occasional remand cases, York Hill catered in its Nursery section for infants, abandoned or orphaned, of either sex up to the age of six years, and in the Homecraft section, which included school classes, girls from seven to eighteen who were homeless, neglected, ill treated, “runaways”, or “in moral danger”; and uncontrollable girls taken in at parents' request. Durations of stay varied widely and the girls entered at different ages, many without previous education; some were physically or mentally handicapped.
Only the experience and dedication of the Superintendent and her largely untrained staff enabled this single multipurpose institution containing so many disparate, disadvantaged, elements to function usefully.
When Maria was admitted, the Home had twenty-one infants in the Nursery section plus forty-four children and ninety-nine other female young persons. There was a staff of twelve.
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