N.C.C. post to woman

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 6

N.C.C. post to woman

The first woman to hold an executive post on the National Council of Churches in New Zealand believes her sex is irrelevant to the job.

Miss Pamela Gruber considers her experience was the deciding factor in her choice as director of the Christian World Service department of the N.C.C.

A teacher by profession, "and instinct,” she joined the staff of the British Council of Churches in 1963. In 1965 she went to Africa to train youth leaders for the All Africa Conference of Churches in Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, and French-speaking West Africa. She has revisited Africa five times, and attended conferences in many Asian countries.

Her next post was with the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and last year she was seconded to a joint pro-

gramme of the Australian' Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Her involvement in aid programmes, and work within developing countries is, she says, the kind of experience the N.C.C. is seeking. ANNUAL APPEAL One of her department’s main responsibilities is raising funds for the annual Christmas appeal. This year the target is $200,000, to be used for aid projects around the world. It will not be used to support the W.C.C.’s two most controversial programmes—the Programme to Combat Racism, which gives money to liberation groups in Southern Africa, and the project to give medical aid to North Vietnam. “Anyone who wants to donate to these funds must send the money separately and specify the fund they want it to go to,” she said. Miss Gruber also has hopes of starting a programme of development education because she believes it is important for people to understand why money is being sought, and how it is being used. For this she will be seeking advice of New Zealanders. STUDY GROUPS In Australia she organised a programme of study groups

to train 3000 to 4000 people who then held discussion groups involving about 100,000 people in all. This sort of work, she believes, will stand her in good stead for getting across the message of the basics of aid —“that two out of every three persons do not have a decent standard of living, that trade favours rich nations, that aid from rich countries often benefits them more than those to whom it’s given, that there is a great shortage of doctors in developing countries . . ." Although increased giving would be an important sideline of this sort of programme, the understanding it would create would be its most important aspect for Miss Gruber.

She believes in the “global village” concept of the world, but she has no illusions. “I think people do want to be like ostriches,” she said. “Often they don’t want to know about the rest of the world.” NO CHOICE

However, she is convinced that for Christians there is no choice.

"Our responsibilities are made abundantly clear in the Bible, and the teaching of Jesus Christ,” she said. “He talks very clearly about justice, relationships, and interdependence and mutuality. We are being less than Christian if we turn our backs.” She sees herself not as a lone crusader but as being asked to gain support and understanding so that many will see that changes must come. “No-one is asking us to change things by ourselves.” W.C.C. aid programmes were welcome in developing countries, she said, because they originate in the receiving country. Often these programmes were test projects which were eventually taken over by the government.

Changing ideas on the type of development to pursue in the future did not affect W.C.C. programmes. “It is the multi-national corporations that go into a country in a big way industrially that may have to change.”

Miss Gruber, who comes from Edinburgh, will be in New Zealand, based in Christchurch, for three years.