MISSION TO LEPERS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30973, 1 February 1966, Page 16

MISSION TO LEPERS

Children Raise £370

Almost 60,000 tea coupons, worth more than £370, were gathered by New Zealand children for the Mission to Lepers last year. The shield for the group which collected most was won by the Fairlie Presbyterian Sunday School, which also won in 1964. The school collected 4864 coupons, over a 10C0 more than in 1964. The Ist Hastings Life Boy team was runner-up with almost 3000, and the Annesbrook Church of Christ Sunday School was third. The value of all the coupons collected will go to the children's own projects to help leprosy homes and hospitals. The 1966 proceeds will go to “Project Africa Schoolhouse” at the Living Waters Leprosy Centre at Hombolo in Central Tanzania, which is run by the Church Missionary Society and financed by the Mission to Lepers. The Petone Baptist Sunday School collected 99,000 used stamps to win the mission's stamp collecting shield for groups. Last year it collected 77,000 and tied for first place with a Kiwitea (Manawatu) group. Stamps which bring the mission about £6OO a year make possible bursaries for three Indian Christian medical students at the Vellore Medical College. When they graduate as doctors they will be assigned to Mission to Lepers hospitals in India. Other projects the children have completed include coconut palms for the Happy Haven colony at Da Nang in South Vietnam; motor-cycles for several leprosy workers in Taiwan (Formosa); a New Zealand-built Gnat for nurses in Papua; a launch engine for the Übuya Leprosy Centre in Papua; stone floors for a boys’ hostel at Kothara in Northern India: and a light motor-cycle for a worker i' there.