SAVE THE CHILDREN APPEAL TODAY

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 12

SAVE THE CHILDREN APPEAL TODAY

The organisers of the New Zealand Save the Children Fund have chosen October 7 as the opening day of their appeal. Last year the North Canterbury Rice Bowl appeal gained more than £2OOO for the fund and this year it is hoped to get more than £3OOO. • A statement by the president of the New Zealand Save the Children Fund (Miss M. G. Havelaar) says the appeal, which will be conducted throughout New Zealand, is asking for money to continue the work being done by the New Zealand Salve the Children Fund in South Korea and Hong Kong and, if possible, beyond these countries.

“We in these peaceful islands, where no-one need oe hungry and where the children are freely given every chance for a good happy life, are by now fully aware that not so very far away from our shores are thousands of children who are hungry, cold and homeless. Moreover, it is quite evident by now that these long years of insufficient means of living are having a very serious mental as well as physical effect and that more and more children are found to be- suffering from serious effects both physically and mentally,” says the statement.

“When six months ago the director-general of the Save the Children Fund (Brigadier T. W. Boyce) was in South Korea we found that because of lack of funds only a very small proportion of children had been able to be admitted to the Save the Children Fund preventorium. About 690 children were still exposed to the risk of infection by leprosy in the leper colonies, where they had been sent with their parents suffering from this disease. “Because of lack of funds these children could not be taken into the preventorium

and be given a chance. There are today 994 children sponsored in Korea and 91,062 people have been fed each month, but thousands more are daily anxiously hoping their children may be called in to the feeding centre and given a meal and nursing care,” says Miss Havelaar. “In Hong Kong the need for food, housing and getting the children off the streets are our teams’ daily problems. The Save the Children Fund simply must enlarge its play find feeding centres. Today 200 can be admitted and 1000 are disappointed and told there is no more room inside. “Our post-war world is haunted by homeless, hungry children. We are daily reminded of the pledge we all took in 1959 through our representatives at the United Nations in the declaration of the Rights of the Child. The child that is hungryfmust be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the orphan, the waif must be sheltered and succoured’,” says the statement.