EUROPEAN STUDENT RELIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18625, 5 August 1922, Page 18

EUROPEAN STUDENT RELIEF

THE LOCAL FUND. The fund for the relief of destitute Eurofiean students which was organised here aet April has so far brought in a total of £435, and of this all but £lO has been remitted by tiio local treasurer, Mr G. W. Reid, to the dominion'treasurer, Dr.Boadhead, of Christchurch, for transmission to the headquarters of the fund at Home. A plan was developed here by which pupils of secondary schools and students should make regular contributions over a period of isix months, and three months of this period has now fully passed. The largest recent addition to the fund has been a second donation from tho University "omen’s Club. Though the appeal primarily concerns students, it is somewhat sur-' prising that, apart from, notably generous contributions from certain sections of the women students, the students as a. whole and tha men in particular have failed to interest themselves in the appeal and the paJhful facte on which it is based. Recent news from the headquarters of the fund, which has Dr John R. Mott at the head of its committee and is being administered under the auspices of the World’s Student Christian Federation, states that the agents of the fund in every country are short of the means to meet the urgent needs for relief that continually confront them. Professor Meredith Atkinson, who recently returned to Melbourne, after independent investigation of the Russian famine area, reports that Russian students ore taking a most important and active part -in relief work. In all the districts he visited ho found that the unloading and distribution of food supplies yfaa being done by students, despite of the fact that thev were one and all almost -starving themselves. They have proved more reliable helpers than any other section of the community. They work with the utmost devotion, receiving no pay save one, sotaty meal a day, and unsparingly give many hours’ overtime daily Students feeding on a considerable scale has already begun in Russia, but the question whether it is to continue, rests, of course, with the supporters of 'the fund. Each student receives one meal a day, and the average cost is six ahillings a month. The relief is confined to students in the last two years of their studies and- to those who have been carefully selected by a committee consisting chiefly of students. 1 The European relief scheme has only recently added Russia to its sphere of activities, and its opportunities in other countries of Europe are bounded only by its resources. In Athens, for instance, there are 600 student refugees from Thrace, Anatolia, Pontus, Armenia, and Asia Minor in a desperate condition. Thousands of Armenian students in Asia Minor are in an equally pitiful plight and are dependent for the barest necessaries of life on what the -fund can do for them. A recent remarkable student conference at Turnov, in Czecho-Slqvakia, consisting of 83 students from 30 (Afferent countries and 65 or 70 different universities, laid the foundations for the firm establishment of selfhelp schemes among the students of Central Europe. . There is unlimited opportunities for assisting through gifts of clothing and food from this country, but so far the need does not seem to have appealed to any great extent to those who are in a position to help in this way.