Service abroad questioned

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32561, 22 March 1971, Page 16

Service abroad questioned

The validity of sending young people overseas on voluntary service was questioned in Christchurch yesterday by the secretary-general of the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations (Dr Frederik Franklin). In the eyes of many developing countries voluntary youth workers presented a convenient method of solving the donor country’s youth problems, Dr Franklin said in an interview.

“There needs to be a much more careful screening of people who go abroad for service and the contribution they have to make,” he said.

Developed countries such as New Zealand were overlooking the fact that youth could accomplish valuable

voluntary service in their own countries. “It may not be so exciting, nor so romantic but there is a very real point in ‘doing your thing’ in your own country.” Such a scheme would eliminate much of the secondrate motivation that surrounded various overseas aid programmes, Dr Franklin said. HOME SERVICE In his own country, Sweden, a system of 1 domestic voluntary service > for youth was an alternative to the two-year period of military training. Such a scheme was suggested for New Zealand last year by Colonel P. Abbott, a Volunteer Service Abroad leader in Dunedin.

“Service on the home-front means that youth would be working for youth and that is good,” Dr Franklin said. He agreed that govern-

rnents in developed nations should establish Ministries for Youth Affairs.

"It is interesting that developing countries have found the need for such special ministries yet with industrial nations the youth questions are dealt with in a number of other ways.” Neither voluntary organisations nor government agencies could possibly hope to cope with the tremendous needs of youth, Dr Franklin said. “The developing cooperation between such groups is to be encouraged.” MERGER?

Would his organisation ever merge with the Young Women’s Christian Association? "I would certainly support such a move when it becomes obvious that it is a move which both groups desire,” he said. “The Y.M.C.A. wants to be a movement for the family and that also means openess.” In Sweden, Dr Franklin said, the two orgonisations had merged in what he termed a recognition of a new situation. “The so-called new morality had little to do with this, but it was felt that young people must have places to meet rather than half-lit bars or cellars.” Dr Franklin is a Swedish citizen bom in India where his parents were missionaries. He received his education in Sweden and graduated

from the University of Gothenburg in 1936. In 1937 he was ordained a minister of the Baptist Church of Sweden. From 1943 he took charge of Y.M.C.A. services with prisoners of war in India and later in Burma.

Dr Franklin was appointed general secretary of the Swedish Y.M.C.A. in 1958 and assumed his present position in 1962.