N.Z. gift to South Vietnam in use

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 18

N.Z. gift to South Vietnam in use

A vocational training centre for disabled Vietnamese servicemen at Thu Due, a suburb of Saigon, has recently been completed by a New Zealand firm as a gift from the New Zea» land Government, under the Colombo Plan.

The centre will provide accommodation for 90 disabled servicemen, who will take courses in household electrical wiring and appliances, radio and television repairs, vehicle and out-board-engine repairs and maintenance, and repairs on refrigerators and air-conditioners.

The courses will be. of three to six months duration, and the instructors will be Vietnamese, though the supervisor of the centre is a New Zealander, Mr K. Sutton, who has been appointed for two years. The project began in 1970, when the New Zealand Government invited various companies to submit plans for the centre. Mr D. V. Brebner, the marketing director of Lockwood Buildings, Ltd, Rotorua, went to Saigon to discuss his plan with the Vietnamese authorities, and to establish a joint venture with a local firm to erect the buildings. His firm was given the contract in December, 1970, and sections of aluminiumsheathed. solid-wall buildings, precut at the firm’s: Rotorua plant, were shipped to Saigon in April, 1971. The buildings comprise three dormitory blocks, each accommodating 30 men, four

classroom workshops, and Veitnamese open-style dining facilities. The centre, which is in use, will be opened and officially handed over to the Viet-

namese authorities by the New Zealand Ambassador to Vietnam (Sir Leonard Thornton), when the Veterans’ Village, of which the centre forms a part, is completed.