Dargaville family to continue Alley’s work

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 38

Dargaville family to continue Alley’s work

PA Auckland A Dargaville farming family is on its way to northern China to continue the work of Rewi Alley. Don and Isabella Powley and their children, Sarah, aged 12, Andrew, aged 10, and Kathryn, aged 17, will travel to Shandan where they will continue the work of New Zealand’s famous ambassador, Rewi Alley, at the school he founded 45 years ago.

Selected from 30 applicants for the job, the Powleys, who speak little Chinese, will become unpaid workers at the school, more than 500 km from the nearest known European household. While Mr Powley will try to develop land near the school into farmland,

Mrs Powley will teach English at the school of about 150 pupils. Rewi Alley called the school the frontline fort in the battle against the desert, and with temperatures ranging from about 3deg. to 20deg., Mr Powley may well have a big job ahead of him. Sarah and Andrew will continue their schooling by correspondence for the 12 months they will be in Shandan.

“Andrew could well have the only cricket bat in the entire province,” Mr Powley joked. Among other things the Powleys have been advised to take are batteries, books and coffee; which may be hard to find in Shandan.

Powley said the family would also take a

healthy supply of winter clothing for their arrival in the middle of the Chinese winter as their ownsized clothing may be difficult to buy. Mr Powley said he was saddened that he could not have met Mr Alley, who remained strongly involved with the school up until his death at the age of 90 late last year. The school, which was established primarily to teach pupils aged from 12 to 17 years in agriculture and animal husbandry, was dedicated to education in the practical as much as the theoretical, Mr Powley said. It was re-opened in April last year after a 1954 earthquake forced it to sfeift to nearby Lanzhou.