Red Cross Work In Dominion And Overseas

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30152, 8 June 1963, Page 17

Red Cross Work In Dominion And Overseas

Ninety-three points in Christchurch city, and many others in the suburbs, will be manned on Friday by members of the Red Cross Society collecting for the society’s annual street day appeal. Collections will also be made in country districts throughout North Canterbury. A market will be held in the Durham Street Methodist Church Hall. Last year the appeal brought in £4474. The money goes mainly to the society's social service activities at home and abroad. At home, it buys blankets for gifts to needy families or for loan to immigrants or others in temporary difficulties; it buys wool and other materials for voluntary helpers to knit into garments for relief work here or overseas; it pays the administrative expenses of the vast voluntary work carried out by the army of 5800 senior members and more than 3000 junior members attached to the North Canterbury centre through its sub-centres or through the Junior Red' Cross. Overseas, the appeal

finances gifts to the people of areas stricken by war or natural disasters; it also pays the freight on clothing and other comforts gathered by the society for the needy of disaster areas or of overcrowded parts of the world, mainly South-east Asia. Last financial year, the North Canterbury centre sent £lOO to India for Invasion refugees, £250 to Iran earthquakevictims, £225 to refugees from the Algerian war, £5O for relief ‘n Hong Kong, £25 for relief in Pakistan, and £450 to the New Zealand Red Cross headquarters disaster relief fund. It also gave £250 to the Freedom from Hunger campaign. Shipping expenses totalled £260. and materials bought to make garments for overseas relief cost £234. All this was in addition to gifts made through the centre by subcentres for various good works, provided out of their own funds and not for the annual appeal. Red Cross services indirectly aided through the appeal—mainly by helping to meet administration costs — include the provision of pub-

lic classes in home nursing, first-aid, and communal health and hygiene, aind the work of the V.A.D.’s (Voluntary Aid Detachment members) .

The V.A.D.’s carry out firstaid duties at large public functions and give regular help to the North Canterbury Blood Transfusion Service, both at its rooms in town and on the visits of its mobile unit to country areas. An important section of the society is the Junior Red Cross, and here again administrative expenses are in part met from the appeal. Junior Red Cross members, who are school children, carry out work similar to that of their adult colleagues, but at a lower level suited to their abilities. Their work is not only useful in itself but provides solid training for community service later. Other projects of the society include the meals-on-wheels scheme by which 230 frail, mostly elderly, persons in Christchurch get a hot meal delivered to their homes three times a week. From June 17, because of the gross overtaxing of the society’s own kitchen facilities at its head-, quarters in Cashel street, the North Canterbury Hospital Board will provide 48 of the meals from the kitchen of the Princess Margaret Hospital, but the society will remain responsible for delivery