Personal Contacts Found Important In Foreign Aid

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30259, 11 October 1963, Page 17

Personal Contacts Found Important In Foreign Aid

Far more good will was created in newly-developing countries by volunteer workers than by giving lump sums of money to governments, said Mr J. S. Baird, who returned recently from a year’s voluntary service in Sarawak, in an address last evening to the Christ’s College Old Boys’ Association. After leaving school, Mr Baird spent a year in an undeveloped area near the Indonesian border, helping the local people with a community development project and rudimentary education.

It seemed obvious that aid to such countries was intended to combat communism rather than to satisfy humanitarian principles, Mr Baird said. Though large sums given to the government of an under-developed country might create good will, among leaders, much of the effect of the gift was lost as the money was whittled away by administration costs. This rankled with village people, and could actually aid communism.

“Personal contacts are what make the correct impression,” said Mr Baird. “In Thailand, two New Zealand engineers with Thai assistants, made a tour of villages boring water wells which had been needed for years. That is the simple sort of thing that foreign aid should be.”

The persons sent under the Overseas Service schemes should either be well-paid experts who would show the maximum material effect for their work, or young volunteers, preferably straight from secondary school, who could mix closely with the local people during and after working hours. A profound influence was felt by both parties in the latter case. He had felt before going to Sarawak that overseas aid was unauthorised meddling in the affairs of another country, but the situation of the local people quickly disabused him of this idea, said Mr Baird. “These people are not ready tor anything in the modern world. They cannot think outside their own village, or even their own family, in many cases. Most of the people I met in the undeveloped areas do not

know what Malaysia is.” Attendance at the few existing schools in the Dyak tribal area where he worked was not compulsory, and most people did not see the value of education. During a year’s work he saw the adult literacy of the area rise from 1 per cent to 10 per cent. Missionaries in Sarawak were doing a magnificent job materially, but the adoption of the Christian faith seemed to be regarded as merely fashionable, like Western dress or hair oil. “I know that everybody coming back from overseas seems to say this, but New Zealand appears a small, smug country. We must wake our ideas up, or Asia will be running us,” said Mr Baird. Mr Baird is at present studying for a bachelor of science degree, in mathematics.