Six Months’ Visit To European Families Offered N.Z. Girls

Press, Volume C, Issue 29669, 13 November 1961, Page 2

Six Months’ Visit To European Families Offered N.Z. Girls

New Zealand girls who are planning to visit Europe now have the opportunity of living with an approved English, German or French family for six months to learn something of the country, its people and their customs. Miss Kathleen Marchant, who runs “Reisezirkel” (German for “Travel Group”) in Dusseldorf. Germany, is now visiting Christchurch and is willing to make her service available to young women in New Zealand, for the first time.

Applicants must be prepared to pay their own fares to Europe and back to New Zealand and should be at least 17 years. Miss Marchant said in an interview recently. Selected girls are not employed in a family but are given free accommodation and pocket money in return for help with light home duties, such as putting children to bed. dusting and vacuum cleaning. •‘They are the kind of jobs that a girl would be expected to do for her own mother,” Miss Marchant explained. A girl must be prepared to stay with a selected family for six months. Regulations make it clear to the families linked with the service that the girls must not be given any charring work to do and must be treated as one of the family. Nor is a girl expected to do any cooking, but if she wants to learn to make typical German, English, or French dishes she may help the housewife prepare meals. Home Office Rules "The rules of our service were laid down by the British Home Office, which watches arrangements very carefully,” she said. Though it is not essential for a New Zealander to speak French or German, some knowledge of the language is helpful if a girl wants to go to a family in France or Germany. While there she would have the opportunity of attending classes in the language. Or she could go to England first and learn French or German at a technical college before going to Europe. "A girl picks up another language very quickly,” Miss Marchant said. “Even if she only knows a few words of the language I tell her to use them as often as possible and build up on them. She will gain a much greater benefit from her visit if she makes every attempt to learn the language of the country while there and if she tries to live as the people do.” The most advantageous ages for this living-in scheme were 17 and 18—between

leaving school and entering university or taking up a career, she said. A New Zealand girl, who wished to stay on in England for a while after her six months with an English or European family, should not have any difficulty in finding a job as a typist or in a hospital. Getting Acquainted Miss Marchant said she must know as much as possible about applicants before sending them to families in her travel service. "I need to know a girl’s characteristics, her hobbies, her interests, whether or not she likes children and so on. The more I know about a girl the better chance I have of placing her with a suitable family of similar interests,” she said. When she has a family in mind for a girl she tells both parties all she knows about each other. If each agrees to an arrangement the family sends the girl an invitation. “This helps to get a permit. Then, to “break the ice’, I encourage the family and the girl to correspond and exchange photographs.” she said. “This also reassures the girl s parents.” Miss Marchant's sole purpose for coming to New Zealand was to visit her sister.

Mrs F. Brown of North Beach. But when flying to New Zealand several passengers on the aircraft suggested that she should offer her service to Christchurch girls who wanted working holidays in Europe. "So I advertised it in The Press’ to make it known to anyone who would be interested,” she said. Since Miss Marchant began her international travel scheme in 1956, she has placed 4000 young women and children in foreign families, “The work is snowballing on recommendation and now I am asked to place about 1000 a year,” she said. International Client* Her own headquarters are in Dusseldorf, but she has offices in London and Cheltenham which she visits regularly. She has placed many children of ambassadors and other professions. Though the visits are arranged mainly between England. Germany and France, she has also organised tours for children and young women from Sweden. Pakistan. Spain. Peru and many other countries. “The joy of my job is in trying to bring people together of similar interests who live in different countries. with different cultures and ways of life. I feel it is a small contribution towards world peace,” Miss Marchant said. Unfortunately the scheme cannot be extended to the Iron Curtain countries.