HELP FOR LEPERS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30827, 12 August 1965, Page 19

HELP FOR LEPERS

Annual Appeal For Money The Mission to Lepers (N.Z.) has just begun its annual cash appeal. “The returns from these appeals are the life blood of our leprosy work,” said the secretary (the Rev. M. Feist), in announcing the appeal. “Scores of leprosy workers in Asia and New Zealand’s Near North depend on the Mission to Lepers for their support. More than 20 of the workers concerned are New Zealanders, and they are all doing a splendid job.

“Never before has the mission had so much to offer the victims of leprosy,” said Mr Feist. “We are in the middle of a great advance. We are making remedial and corrective surgery available to thousands of people who not only have leprosy but who have become cripples because of it. In co-operation with the Administration, we have this year established a surgical team at Madang, in New Guinea. We hope to be able to establish a second one in another part of that territory next year. The mission is also sharing in the establishment of a rehabilitation centre at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for a large area of North Africa.”

Mr Feist, who recently returned from Papua and New Guinea, said he was sure that if people here could only see some of the people there who had been crippled for years and were now walking again, and could watch children whose hands had been deformed now writing, eating, and playing games again, they would feel glad to have a part in this work. As full householder appeals have become increasingly expensive, the mission this year is relying for publicity on the press and radio, and the churches for distributing their leaflets. Donations may be sent to the Mission’s Christchurch representative, Miss M. G. Titheridge, 151 Mays road, Papanui, Christchurch. Giving by the people of Canterbury to this appeal in recent years has averaged £3OOO, having been as high as £3300 in 1961, but down to £2442 last year.