APPOINTMENTS IN GAMBIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25801, 23 March 1945, Page 3

APPOINTMENTS IN GAMBIA

The first two women to be appointed to the rank of Assistant Colonial Secretary are to work in Gambia, British West African colony. They are Miss Helen M. Burness and Miss M. A. Evans, both , university graduates. At the age of 16 ! Helen Burness won a national essay comi petition on “ Development of Colonial Government." She has since held posts in the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the War Office. She won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, but left the university to take up war work i in 1939. Miss Evans attended school in New | Jersey, U.S.A., and came to Britain to | take her degree at University College, I North Wales. She later took a diploma 1 of public administration at the London I School of Economics. I These appointments are welcomed as I increasing recognition, both at Home and I in the colonies, of the part women can I play in colonial administration. Women I were first taken into the administrative B grade in the British Colonial Office in | December, 1938. Temporary appoint- H merits were also made to positions in g the home service, since no permanent ap- I pointments could be made in war-time. 1 Later on, women magistrates were ap- 1 pointed to serve in Nigeria and in Gam- 1 bia. The Colonial Welfare Advisory Com- | mittee also includes a good proportion | of women. „ I The two new appointments are seen | as fulfilment of a promise made by Sec- 6 retary of State for the Colonies (Mr B Oliver Stanley) earlier this year, when he | received a deputation from women’s | organisations. They urged that the help 1 of women officials should be utilised in | education, industry, social welfare, legal, I medical, and allied services in the 1 colonies. | The deputation expressed warm appre- | ciation of “ the enlightened spirit in which S the Colonial Office is planning to im- g prove the status and the conditions of | the colonial peoples with a view of their 1 becoming capable of self-government. fl “ Experience gained by administrations K which for centuries have been accus- f tomed to look at the problems of life ft through the eyes of men only," the depu- g tation said in conclusion, “is inadequate 1 to deal with the requirements of popu- B lations composed of women as well as fl men." p