VOLUNTEER SERVICE

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30235, 13 September 1963, Page 15

VOLUNTEER SERVICE

Opportunities Unlimited (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND. Sept 12. New Zealanders had plenty of opportuniues in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific to help people establish a better way of life tor themselves. Sir Edmund Hillary, president of the New Zealand Council tor Volunteer Service Abroad, bold an audience at Auckland University tonight. ‘‘There is a demand totpeople who are prepared to giive a couple of years of their lives to doing something woifth-whlle,” he said. "You help people in this process, but more than anything else you help yourself. You find that although people come from different countries and speak different languages, they are really not too different from ourselves."

Sir Edmund Hillary, who described work done by his expedition in Nepal earlier this year, said that aid of this sort was far more appreciated arid fair less resented than large-scale programmes involving millions of dollars. Organisations like Volunteer Service Abroad, New Zealand's equivalent of the American Peace Corps, were far less suspect and got closer to the people.

"This is mot confined to those with professional qualifications,” he said. “We want people with technical backgrounds, too. Who can pitch in and do things with their hands and show others how to do them.” New’ Zealanders, with their initiative, their self-reliance, and their fondness for "do-it-yourself” in all fields were ideally suited for this type of work.