New Zonta head

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 10

New Zonta head

By

BARREN BEANLAND

Service clubs are “fabulous” organisations which aim to raise money and provide help for 16ss fortunate people, says Miss Jeanne Edgar, who is the new governor of Zonta International in New Zealand and Australia. Jeanne Edgar recently returned from the beinnial world convention of Zonta International, held in Washington D.C., where she was elected governor of the Australia and New Zealand district. The convention, which elected officers and did its housework fpr the next two years, was attended by 2000 women from 47 countries. “We are all in this because we believe that collectively we can do so much more to help people than we can as individuals,” she said. She will be responsible for the largest of Zonta’s 19 districts throughout the world in terms of size, and the third biggest in numbers. More than 1800 women are members of 57 Zonta clubs in Australia and New Zealand. A further eight are being set up. As governor, she will work towards increasing membership and establishing more clubs in the area. She will also attend workshops in Australia and New Zealand which review the work of clubs and swap ideas for successful service programmes.

Her main ambition while she is governor is to set up Zonta International clubs in the Pacific.

Jeanne Edgar, who has worked as a teacher of deaf children and as a child welfare officer, is the director of the Risingholme Community Centre. She was a charter member of the Christchurch Zonta club, which * was established nearly 10 years ago. Although Zonta is a young organisation in Australia and New Zealand, it has supported some very successful projects. The international organisation was set up in 1919, and now has 30,000 members throughout the world.

In the last two years Zonta clubs in Australia and New Zealand raised $1 2 0,000 for local, national, and international projects.

The main international project at the moment is' to set up medical units in slum areas in Colombia, in co-operation with the United- Nations Children’s organisation, U.N.I.C.E.F. Internationally, the organisation also funds scholarships for womene graduates working in space technology, -associated sciences, and .engin-*-eering. In the last two.,) years 47 scholarships have’ been awarded. • Local clubs raise money for their own aid projects and provide services, Jeanne Edgar explains. Her own- club does work ranging from taking children to see children’s theatre to financing a project to set up a pottery workshop at the Twomey Memorial Hospital for lepers in Fiji. “Zonta usually provided its overseas aid through existing aid organisations such as U.N.I.C.E.F. or the Leper Trust Board, because that is the safest way.” ‘

“Clubs also work .in conjunction with other service organisations in local projects,” she says.? “Although Zonta is not political organisation, it does aim to encourage women to be active in all fields of government Each club has a status of women committee, which considered any decisions that affected women dr their families.” Zonta clubs are open only to professional and business women in deci-sion-making positions, so their work is effective, she maintains. C

“If they decide to support an international project then it will go with a bang,” she added. -