FATHERLESS BOYS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3155, 10 August 1942, Page 5

FATHERLESS BOYS

HERITAGE MOVEMENT NEW ZEALAND PROPOSAL A GOOD START IN LIFE A movement with objects similar to those of the legacy clubs of Australia, which have done magnificent work since the Great War for the children of deceased soliders, is to be started in New Zealand. Many thousands of young Australians have been assisted to a good start in life through the agency of their legacy guardians, who have made themselves responsible for keeping closely in touch with a boy and providing him with advice and assistance similar to that which would have been given by his own father had he lived. The first general meeting of Heritage, the name given to the New Zealand movement, will be held this week in Wellington. Included in the interim executive which has been responsible for the preliminary organisation are several men who have been associated with legacy work in Australia, and the objects of the movement have been so strongly supported that there are already more than 300' financial members. Country’s Greatest Assets

Those responsible for organising Heritage believe that among the country’s greatest assets for th.e future are the boys who are to-day being left fatherless by the war. There are many ways in which mothers bringing up sons are handicapped in seeing them fairly started in the battle of life, and the organisers of Heritage believe that it is both an obligation and a privilege for people who are not able to serve overseas to give every possible assistance to the sons of the men. They urge that there is no finer way of assisting than by helping the boys whose fathers have made the supreme sacrifice.

Many men with special qualifications for helping have already joined the movement ,and it is hoped that everybody who is interested will join up.

Membership will be of three types. There will -be “sponsors,” men who will, with the full backing of the movement and with assistance provided by it where necessary, undertake the personal oversight of a boy. These members will keep in touch with the boy during his school years, find out his aptitudes, help him in his school or home life, and finally, through the movement’s special committees, see him later on started out in life. Assist The Sponsors

Other members with special qualifications will serve on committees such as education, medical, dental and. employment committees, and their duty will be to assist the spon-' sors with specialised services for the boys.

Lastly, there will be a class of membership composed of men or business firms who, while not able to give the personal service which is to be the keynote of the movement, wish to help by paying the annual subscription.