PROGRESS IN WORK FOR BLIND

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28699, 24 September 1958, Page 9

PROGRESS IN WORK FOR BLIND

“Vast Improvement In West”

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Sept. 23. The rapid progress made throughout the Western world in welfare work for the blind would act as a great advantage when it came to developing that work in the East and the more under-developed countries, Sir Clutha Mackenzie said in Auckland today. "There has been a vast improvement in the Western world since I lost my sight 43 years ago, but we are still in the early stages of blind welfare work in the rest of the world,” he said. The chairman of the World Council of Braille and also a member of the World Council for the Blind, Sir Clutha Mackenzie returned to Auckland in the Monowai, following five years abroad on international blind welfare work. Describing himself as a "wandering consultant for different bodies” he worked for local governments, the United Nations, the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, the American Foundation for Overseas Blind and the Uganda Foundation for the Blind. His work was varied, but he had given particular assistance to those attempting to alleviate the problem of blindness in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, he said. These countries contributed four-fifths 'of the world’s blind and, up to now, blind welfare had only managed to reach 1 per cent, of the rural peasantry.