SOUTH VIETNAM LEPERS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29747, 14 February 1962, Page 2

SOUTH VIETNAM LEPERS

N.Z. Children Help Establish Colony

This year, as part of its golden jubilee programme, the Mission to Lepers plans to give considerable assistance to the leper colony being established in South Vietnam. according to the mission’s New Zealand secretary (the Rev. M. H. Feist). New Zealand children will have their part in the project. Acting through the mission’s youth organisation, the Torchbearers, they will raise more money to supply sprouted coconuts to provide palm trees for food and shelter for the colony. Families, clubs and individual children have already subscribed sufficient to buy about 500 properlysprouted palms at 3s 6d each.

The mission on the spot, with which the Mission to Lepers is co-operating, is the World-wide Evangelisation Crusade, which has been trying to provide treatment for the considerable number of leprosy sufferers in this area of South Vietnam. Last year a site was secured and building began, but the Government vetoed the project because it decided to put a road past the site to open up a mountain peak as a scenic resort. A better site has now been found on the coast, a cargo launch is being built, and soon the project should be under way.