Aid To Africa Urged

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30971, 29 January 1966, Page 2

Aid To Africa Urged

“Africa wants our help now. There seems to be so much distress, uncertainty and unhappiness, that where the Save The Children Fund has gone to help we must go too,” Miss M. Havelaar, Dominion president, told the North Canterbury branch at a meeting of its committee yesterday.

Miss Havelaar read a letter of thanks from the Basutoland Fund for £lOO sent from North Canterbury. Present drought conditions would leave the people little to spend on clothes and education and more help was desperately needed. Miss Havelaar said. A further £lOO would be sent.

Arrangements for a public meeting at which Dr. I. Schneideman, a New Zealand doctor in charge of a fund nutrition clinic in Uganda, will speak was discussed. The meeting, on February 24, will be sponsored by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, the Commonwealth Society, and the Save the Children Fund. The sum of £2OO will be given to the clinic. A letter of appreciation was also received from the children of Hermagor Hospital in Austria, where the fund sponsors a free bed for a child suffering from poliomyelitis. The fund sends £3OO annually from donations left at the Christmas tree in Christchurch Cathedral. “Through the generosity of the people of Christchurch, many children have received care and been restored to healthy useful lives,” Miss Havelaar said. Excellent progress was reported from the vocational

training school in Korea and an additional £2OO was voted for the project. The Korean student sponsored by the North Canterbury branch last year again will be sent £3O to enable him to continue his studies. Miss Havelaar spoke of the terrible conditions described in recent letters from Crete. Several children had been recommended for sponsorship, and the committee decided to

undertake a family sponsorship, and to send £2OO to the fund in Greece. Proceeds from the rice bowl appeal totalled £3304, of which £773 had been raised by the Westland sub-branch. “Westland is just a new branch, and it is wonderful that they have raised that amount,” Miss Havelaar said. “Our appeal is good, but it is certainly not up to last year’s.”