Christchurch man gets top Red Cross jobs

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33448, 1 February 1974, Page 14

Christchurch man gets top Red Cross jobs

(By

KEN COATES)

A Christchurch accountant who has quietly built up an international reputation as an administrator will leave next week on another overseas assignment. He is 48-year-old Mr Sydney Smith, who will take up a key post in the multination relief drive in Ethiopia for the Red Cross. Modest and unassuming, married with a family of three, Mr Smith is matter-of-fact about the jobs he has been doing in recent years. It all began when he took a post with the World Council of Churches’ relief team in South Vietnam in 1967-68. He was there during the Tet offensive when war refugees were desperately in need of aid. As to why a city accountant should take on such a job at all, Mr Smith says: “Well, I believe helping others is my way of expressing my Christian belief.” Back in New Zealand, he became interested in the setting up of Red Cross disaster relief teams, and says he was a volunteer in this work like everyone else. Word of his work in Vietnam apparently got around in Red Cross circles, and early in 1972 he was asked by the League of Red Cross Societies, with headquarters in Geneva, to take charge of relief operations in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh For two periods in 197273, Mr Smith directed the spending of thousands of dollars from Red Cross organisations all over the world. “We worked with the Bangladesh Red Cross, sometimes on specific projects and other times just ensuring the people received relief in the form of food, clothing and shelter,” he recalls. Talking to Mr Smith, it soon becomes clear why he has become sought by international Red Cross officials. He has a highly developed sensitivity towards people. “It is essential that you get on with the local people,” he says. “You need to be firm but diplomatic, and of course they have to become involved in the work themselves.”

Listening to his off-the-record experiences in dealing with some officials from other countries it also becomes apparent that Syd Smith also has the happy knack of working well with people of other races, understanding their attitudes and allowing them to retain their dignity.

“Ask them to help you, and they will do anything for you,” he says. With people from 17 different countries taking part in the relief programme in Bangladesh, it was a real international effort, he says. Two helicopters supplied by the Swedish Red Cross aided' medical and relief units to carry out feeding and medical aid programmes. “Learned a lol” Mr Smith not only rubbed shoulders with people from other countries — he lived with a Protestant, Roman Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu and a Moslem. “It certainly was a broadening experience and I learned a lot about other faiths and cultures,” he recalls. He describes the work as rewarding, conceding that it is not the answer to people’s problems. But it does provide them with urgent help while they are gradually able to re-es-tablish themselves, he adds. When the League of Red Cross Societies wanted someone to head its relief programme in droughtstricken Ethiopia, it called on Syd Smith, of New Zealand — again. He will leave on Thursday for Addis Abbaba, and one major task will be to ensure that relief supplies are distributed to country areas. TV and newspaper reports of Ethiopian drought victims dying like flies have brought world-wide response, and refugees in Wollo province have been housed in 13 camps along the main road. But other provinces are still in need of help. A New Zealand mobile medical team may join four similar Red Cross teams from Germany, and others from other countries. United Nations agencies are also helping. In the family Mr Smith expects to be working with 200 Ethiopian Red Cross volunteers, so there will be ample scope for his talents in dealing with people. It looks as though working abroad to help others runs in the Smith family. The eldest daughter is working in Western Samoa under the V.S.A. scheme, and is married to a V.S.A. engineer, also named Smith. A son is at Canterbury University completing a science degree and the youngest is a daughter aged 16. Syd Smith does not say much about the obvious sac-

rifices involved in leaving his wife and family alone for months on end. But he says he did manage to take them to Bangladesh for Christmas a year ago. “I enjoy the work because you can see some practical results which people appre-

ciate and are grateful for,” he comments. Red Cross officials in Christchurch confirm Mr Smith’s flair for getting on with the job and with people of all types and races. “The hardest thing is getting him to talk about it,” they say.