S.C.F. in deficit, and some projects may be wound up

Press, 26 April 1983, Page 4

S.C.F. in deficit, and some projects may be wound up

A lack of finance might force some Save the Children Fund projects to be wound up and others to be restricted, the organisation’s director of fund-raising, Miss Emma Nicholson, has said.

Miss Nicholson, of London, was in Christchurch on her tour of New Zealand branches. The fund’s finances had been hit hard by inflation.

“People just have less money to give away,” she said. “I am not happy with the amount we are receiving, but I am very grateful for what we do get.” The organisation had been running at a big deficit and its London-based finance committee had warned that it could not continue for much longer before projects had to be cut back. Econo-' mies were being made wherever possible. “We are not able to expand as we would wish,” Miss Nicholson said.

“There are two million children living below the starvation level in Sri Lanka. We could and should be spending four or five times as much as we are in that country. “It is very frustrating seeing a need, knowing how to put it right, but not being able to because of a lack of finance," she said. About $24 million is

raised each year by the S.C.F. in New Zealand, Australia, and Britain. A total of $lOO million is raised internationally. Inflation had also hit the S.C.F. in New Zealand, which, for several years, had raised the highest amount on a per capita basis than any other country, she said. Almost $2 million was raised in New Zealand last year, 1 per cent down on the previous year’s total. It was the first time for several years that a record amount had not been raised. The reason for New Zealand’s otherwise successful fundraising was that other countries were not as well organised.

“Your volunteer women workers here would put some businesses to shame,” said Miss Nicholson. The S.C.F. in New Zealand was the only one to be run entirely by volunteers. New Zealanders also seemed to have a broader perspective of world problems and a greater understanding of poverty in developing countries, she said.

Many of the programmes and research done by the S.C.F. in developing countries benefited other countries. Until recently, polio was thought to be a declining disease. Research by the S.C.F. found that half of the disabled people in the world were crippled with polio. “No-one has had the resources to do this research before,” said Miss Nicholson.

The Dutch S.C.F. helped develop the production of a killed polio vaccine grown as a culture. The vaccine was being field tested in the Upper Volta, and if it proved successful, “massive quantities” could be produced from cultures.

This method would bypass the slow method of producing a vaccine from laboratory-bred monkeys.

Methods of storing polio vaccine had also been researched and developed by the S.C.F.