Princess Anne here to highlight Save the Children Fund jubilee

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 19

Princess Anne here to highlight Save the Children Fund jubilee

Hundreds of children connected with the Save the Children Fund will have the chance to see their world president, Princess Anne, during her brief tour of New Zealand this week. The Princess, who has been world president since 1973, is in New Zealand specifically to highlight the Diamond Jubilee of the fund, coinciding with the International Year of the Child. Today Princess Anne flies to Christchurch for morning tea at the Christchurch Town Hall with South Island members of the fund. There will also be a civic reception and an International Year of the Child function in the afternoon. On her way to New Zealand Princess Anne visited refugee camps and Save the Children Fund projects in Thailand. New Zealanders still give more than any other coun-

try to the' Save the Children Fund on a per capita basis. In the last financial year, SI. IM was raised here. In addition to this, the New Zealand Government last year donated $40,000 to the Jamuna River project in Bangladesh.

Most of the money raised goes straight to SCF Headquarters in London and is distributed according to suggestions from New Zealand. This covers both emergency funding and long-term work, such as establishing mother and child health clinics, vocational training, and overall community care in Third World countries.

New Zealand independently spent $52,616 last year sending milk powder supplies directly overseas. It also contributes to very long-term projects such as the IYC poliomyelitis eradication programme. As well as providing necessary funds, the New

Zealand fund helps the world’s children in another way — through ex-patriots working for the fund' overseas in London or on the spot in disaster areas, refugee camps and established projects. They include doctors, nurses, teachers, administrative and clerical staff. Save the Children Fund aid today goes mainly to developing countries in Asia. Africa and Latin America, but special projects also continue in major Western countries — such as child care centres in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The intention of aid is not just to help the child, but to ensure his future survival by helping the Whole community that he lives in. Much emphasis now is on mother and child care, mother and child health centres, and community development. Projects are underway improving sanitation, providing clean water, teaching fishing and agriculture skills, and training local workers. In many countries there are vocational training schemes to teach adolescents a

variety of technical skills. The fund is moving away from sending highly trained medical teams to developing nations. Instead, outside workers are comprising many more health visitors and community nurses who can pass on knowledge at grass roots level. The view is that specialised “Western-world” medicine is often inappropriate to the simple resources of the newer nations, where technical facilities are not always available.

The long-term aim is to transfer simple skills to local people so that they can carry on when the overseas helpers leave. Erradicating polio among children of the world is the long-term aim of a Save the Children Fund plan begun this year. All 24 New' Zealand branches are raising funds to aid polio child victims in African countries such as Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi. The polio scheme, w'hich is expected to involve the SCF for at least 25 years, is being run in conjunction with the World Health

Organisation and the Government of each, host country. The world target is the immunisation of 80,000 children a year by oral means, using sugar lumps impregnated with vaccine. The over-all aim is to initiate and finance realistic poliomyelitis programmes in Third World countries where polio is most prevelent. The SCF hopes that once individual schemes are under way, local health authorities in countries affected can be trained to carry on with.the immunis--ations.