UNEMPLOYED WOMEN

Southland Times, Issue 22131, 27 September 1933, Page 6

UNEMPLOYED WOMEN

PROVISION OF ASSISTANCE. ADVISORY' COMMITTEE APPOINTED. (Special to the Times). Wellington, September 26. The Minister of Employment (the Hon. Adam Hamilton) has approved of a Women’s Advisory Committee, set up by the Unemployment Board, to investigate and report as to the provision of assistance for unemployed women, the members of the committee being Miss M. E. Carnachan (Auckland), Mrs Marshall Macdonald (Wellington) and Mrs M. J. Forde (Wellington). Miss Carnachan is Dominion president of the National Council of Women, and is a retired school teacher. Mrs Macdonald until recently resided in Dunedin, where she was well known as a social worker. Both Miss Carnachan and Mrs Macdonald were members of the previous Women’s Advisory Committee, but Mrs Forde is a new member. Mrs Forde was born at Seaward Downs, and is a daughter and a granddaughter of Southland pioneer settlers. During her residence in Invercargill she became first secretary of the Invercargill Housewives’ Union, and for a time she was secretary of the Southland District Trades and Labour Council, being the only woman in New Zealand to have occupied such a position. Since coming to Wellington, Mrs Forde was for eight years a member of the Terrace School Committee, which she also represented on the School Committees’ Association. She was a member of the District Council of the Workers’ Educational Association for several years, and for three years acted as welfare officer for the Wellington Education Board in connection with schools for retardate children. Mrs Forde served a term on the executive of the League of Nations Union, and is a member of the executive of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children. She was for a term Dominion secretary of the National Council of Women, and was for two years president of the Wellington branch of the N.C.W., of which she has since been secretary for the past eight years. Mrs Forde has also acted-as president of the Wellington Housewives’ Union, president of the Wellington Women’s branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, vice-president of the Wellington North branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, and vice-president of the Wellington Labour Representation Committee. When women’s unemployment committees were first set up in the various centres, the then Minister of Employment (Mr S. G. Smith) appointed Mrs Forde to represent the Government on the Wellington Committee, and two successive Ministers of Employment, the Rt. Hon J. G. Coates and the Hon. Adam Hamilton, have renewed that appointment.