Soroptomist award has far-reaching effects

Press, 24 March 1977, Page 12

Soroptomist award has far-reaching effects

Service organisations, which raise funds to grant scholarships to people in developing countries to study in specialised fields, I are not always aware how II far-reaching the results may be.

Some of them never know I for sure what a grantee does after a study course, which I they have made possible.

Was the scholarship put to I its best use in the long | term? Soroptimist Internationall of Australia and New Zea-’ land, however, should be deeply gratified to know that the $lOOO they awarded to Mrs Lottie Naseri of Apia is helping to bring a much healthier life to village women and children in Western Samoa. Mrs Naseri’s scholarship enabled her to complete a year’s course in domestic science at the South Pacific Community Education Centre, Suva, in 1970. Now she is director of the home economics programme of the national Council of Women of Western Samoa. With her assistant-director and a Catholic nun, she goes into the village to teach women nutrition, child care, home improvements, hygiene, cooking, sewing, first aid and home nursing. “Bearing Fruit” “What I learnt in Suva is now bearing fruit in our villages,” Lottie Naseri said | yesterday. “We can see the results.” I Child nutrition is greatly i improving (“though it still I has a long way to go”) because village mothers are I being taught to understand | food values. In the past they gave too much starchy foods |to their children. Now they are raising chickens for eggs (and are also serving fresh milk and fish to their families. It has been a matter of advising and encouraging village mothers to change old habits in diet — and in home-making, she said.

I As well as teaching villajgers how to grow the most i nutritious vegetables and use 'the best local foods available, Mrs Naseri and her assistants are helping them ’ to accept the economic adI vantages of using local materials in their homes. “For instance, we are showing them how to make tables out of packing cases instead of buying tables,” she said. Mrs Naseri’s team needs more helpers, so a training course has been started i recently in Apia, at what ’ she calls the “mothers’ centre.” “We cannot afford to send students to Suva to attend the South Pacific Community Education Centre,” she > said, “so we are training them in cooking, sewing, nu- . trition and home improvements to equip them to go : out into districts to extend our programme.” Lottie Naseri does not | give all the credit to her own team for improved con-1 I Editions in the villages. , : “Doctors and district ’ nurses, under the Health DeIpartment, have been going (into the villages for years to .’improve child nutrition and , Iso on," she said. “We help jlthe department with our , lown separate programme.” > I But, she feels, she cannot • jover-emphasise the “tremens'dous value” of her Soroptimi ist Scholarship in enabling her to do a course which trained her to help village f women help themselves. ; She had a useful background for the work before II she went to Suva. She was training at the Western

Samoan School of Nursing when she left (before graduating) to marry Dr L. K. Naseri. She has travelled extensively with him on his assignments to Pacific island hospitals, helping out as a nurse.

“I have always tried to help my husband as a nurse,” she said. “He encouraged me to go to Suva and he has been a great help to me in my study of home economics.” Medical family

Dr and Mrs Naseri have six daughters and two sons. “Most of them seem to be interested in the nursing or medical professions,” she said.

Their ■ daughter, Salailua (Sally for short) who married Malcolm Cotter of Christchurch nearly three weeks ago, will graduate from the Christchurch School of Nursing this evening and will continue her career. Another daughter is training at Masterton Hospital. Two other daughters and their younger I son hope to become doctors. Dr and Mrs Naseri came to Christchurch to attend Sally’s wedding and her graduation ceremony.

While here Mrs Naseri hopes to meet some of the contributors to the Soroptimist Iriternational of Australia and New Zealand’s scholarship fund for South Pacific women. She would like to tell Christchurch Soroptimists first-hand how much her award has enabled her to do for the women of Western Samoa.

“A Soroptimist Club was started in Apia last year and I hope to become a member,” Lottie Naseri said.