‘Speak Up’ campaign could be exported

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 15

‘Speak Up’ campaign could be exported

r 2. Press Association) AUCKLAND. The “Speak up” camcampaign in New Zealand might be spread abroad by Lions International. The world president of the 1.2 m-strong Lions service organisation (Mr H. J. Aslan) visited Auckland and said he had been impressed with the “Speak Up” campaign, which began in Christchurch. Mr Aslan, of Kingsburg, California, said he had not heard of any similar citizens’ campaign in his visits to dozens of countries since September. He said he would report on the “Speak Up” campaign, which encourages citizens to' call the police when they see anvthing suspicious in their neighbourhood, and w-ould i tell other Lions districts and countries of its success. Mr Aslan, who will leave Auckland this week for California and for further tours in the United States, said he : liked the campaign because it encouraged citizens to play ;

their part to make their community safer. He said he was sure it would have good application in other countries. However, as local Lions clubs were autonomous and made their own decisions, he could do no more than recommend it. A fruit packer and ranch owner, Mr Aslan said Lions clubs world-wide were fighting the cost squeeze. Lions had still managed to help with relief in disaster areas and underdeveloped countries by providing food, schools, orphanages, hospitals, clothing, and other aid. In some countries, such as Mexico. Lions was virtually the welfare department of the nation, he said. At Blockhouse Bay on Tuesday, Mr Aslan will present. on behalf of the Mount Roskill Lions Club, the first equipped caravan to be used bv the National Hypertension Trust for checking blood pressure. In Sydney, he dedicated a new cancer research centre set up by Lions clubs and visited a f.ions-sponsored kid-1 ney foundation.

Mr Aslan is convinced of the closeness of the "world 1 neighbourhood.” No part of the world was more than a day or so away by jet and with television ! and travel the problems of the i world became local to all in nature. For this reason he saw a good future for the humanitarian-based Lions movement —the largest service club organisation in the world. Lions was no longer an allmale domain, he said. There were now 214 Lioness clubs, with hundreds of others awaiting their charter. There were at least seven Lioness clubs in New Zealand. Victim dies Mrs Rachel Hyams, who was one of 85 persons injured in a guerrilla bomb explosion at a crowded west London exhibition centre last month, has died in hospital. Mrs Hyams, who was 79, had been in the in-tensive-care unit since March 27, when the explosion ripped through the [first floor of the Olympia exhibition centre. — London.