Corso 'alive and well’ in Canterbury

Press, 18 June 1976, Page 13

Corso ' alive and well’ in Canterbury

The role Corso should play in New Zealand has been thrashed out on the national scene. PAUL RANSLEY has been inquiring into the effects the sometimes acrimonious debate has had on local efforts. He was told:

Corso’s image has been tarnished in the last few months by the public airing of its’ dirty linen. But many of its strongest supporters believe the widespread publicity has served to strengthen the organisation and renew its contact with "the people." Among them is the Canterbury organiser, Bob Consedine. who, with volunteer helpers, has this week been preparing for Corso’s annual cash appeal tomorrow. Mr Consedine says that in a sense the public has participated in the structural changes Corso has undergone and that this nas been a good thing. He stresses that Corso is a ••people’s” organisation and. in Canterbury anyway. is alive and well. Mr Consedine is of the new breed of aid-givers. Articulate, and forthright in his views, he believes that Corso has yet to reach its full potential and must go further in educating New Zealanders to the needs of the poor and the causes of poverty. This development education — as it is labelled — was the controversial

spark which set Corso alight. Many people felt Corso should maintain its traditional role as a giver of aid; education should be left to another organisation. Mr Consedine believes that giving aid and educating New Zealanders go hand-in-hand. He says that the causes of poverty must be known before poverty can be overcome. He rubbishes as misleading the idea that by giving $4O a year a person can “save" a child in some faraway country. “Thirty years of that type of aid, while it has helped some people, has not solved the problem,” he says.

' “There are more poor people in the world today than there were when the aid business started after the Second World War. so more of the same is not the solution. What is clear is that if the poor are going to develop, the rich will have to change. You can’t buy your way out of it by putting a small sum of money in an envelope." With the exception of emergency appeals, most of Corso's money goes to

long-term, self-help projects, with particular attention given to those groups tackling the causes of poverty, groups that are working at raising the consciousness of the poor and working for change at a very basic level, Mr Consedine says.

“Development education fits m because the same thing, in principle, has to happen to the rich. We will be concentrating on those matters which New Zealand does which cause poverty.” He cites three areas in which, he says, New Zealanders are at fault. “New Zealand is simply using the Pacific Islands as a source of labour. When we need the labour we let Pacific Islanders come in; wh*m we do not need the labour we kick them out.

“Experts tell us that most New Zealanders will die of diseases related to overeating. This is quite monstrous when we consider that a large section of the world’s population will die from a lack of the basic necessities. “Many of the commodities New Zealand depends upon come from

developing countries, and for a long time we have bought them cheaply because the people who produce the commodities have been badly exploited — as an example, the

workers on the tea estates in Sri Lanka.” The development education theme has now been adopted as Corso’s third aim. It reads “To investigate the deeper

causes of underdevelopment and use the information obtained in education programmes in New Zealand.” The other aims are: “To meet requests for emergency relief wherever possible and to support schemes for development that bring hope and purpose to people overseas.” “Before development education was adopted as an aim we were concerned only with the cash appeal and a clothing collection. Now we have really pulled New Zealand into the world-wade development debate,” Mr Consedine says.

Telling New Zealanders that they are responsible for causing poverty is not going to win any popularity stakes. “Corso will never be popular if it does its job,” Mr Consedine admits “It is not in the popularity business, and the very nature of the issues it raises could well make it unpopular.” But Corso should not try to remain non-controversial by covering up the issues.

’ “We are not here to preserve Corso like a museum, The people involved

in Corso are going to be active and involved and raise issues about poverty and oppression. We expect the public to judge us by what we do. “We accept no labels. We will talk about poverty and oppression wherever it exists. We are not practising any ideology nor do we pretend to have the solutions. But we hope that solutions can be found by’ getting more and more people involved in the debate.” Recently, the anti-apar-theid film, “Last Grave at Dimbaza,” was shown at Corso’s office. Asked about Corso’s involvement in political issues such as the All Black tour to South Africa, Mr Consedine says: “I think ‘Dimbaza’ did us a lot of good. Corso should identify with the poor, we are not here to identify with the rich. Our job is to present, the needs of the poor to the' rich, but we have to be careful our information is accurate.” Corso’s office in Barbadoes Street bears out Mr Consedine's interest in “deve T pment education." At th_ front of the large

building a “third-world” shop sells Pacific and Asian hand-crafts. These w’ere bought from the Trade Aid chain of stores which sends the profits back to the Pacific and Asia.

The walls are lined with posters espousing the needs of the poor, and a library at the back of the building provides up-to-date information on developing countries and new trends in aid effprts; Mr Consedine’s region includes Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough, the West Coast, and Buller. He sees himself as an initiator of activity in the region. Aged 33, he has been with Corso for six years. Another staff member, Diane Dodson, is also employed full-time by Corso. Mike Reid, a volunteer worker, is paid $1250 a year out of the branch’s education fund, which is raised locally. About S5OOO has been given to Canterbury Corso’s development education fund by local people. The money is spent on films, pamphlets, and gathering information.