Y.W.C.A. IN CHINA

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

Y.W.C.A. IN CHINA

VARIETY OF ACTIVITIES. IMPORTANCE OF THE WORK. A visitor to New Plymouth next week who will be of considerable interest to New Plymouth women will be Miss Agnes M. Moncrieff, who for five years was student department secretary of the Y.M.C.A. at Pekin. Miss Moncrieff, who is a New Zealander, has had the opportunity of meeting prominent Japanese women, university professors and Rotarians, and these contacts have given her a clear understanding ef the Japanese point of view, and lend colour to her account of the situation in the Far East. Educated at Victoria University and Wellington Training College, Miss Moncrieff was for some years a .teacher at the Marsden College, Wellington, and the Feilding Agricultural High School. She was later appointed girls’ work secretary of the Dunedin branch of the Y.W.C.A. She first took part in international work in 1932, when as travelling secretary for the movement in New Zealand she attended a conference of the World Student Christian Federation at Pekin. While resident in China Miss Moncrieff acted as adviser to the Student Christian Movement and worked with groups of Government high schools and varsity students. Most Of tlie work was done with the co-operation of the Y.W.C.A. In addition she extended her activities to rural districts;, which . she reached by bicycle. While at New Plymouth Miss Moncrieff will speak on International fellowship from practical experiences. Members of the various Y.W. and Y.M.C.A. groups at New-Plymouth have during the past few months devoted much time and thought in pieparing for Miss Moncrieff’s visit. The rise of the Republic, Chinese customs modem and old, business methods and many other sides of life in China, have been studied by the groups. Hie Y.W.C.A. is accomplishing a great work in China. Influential women, many of whom are Chinese, have established 12 city associations managed by boards of women, which assume responsibility for the finance and activities of the work.' The bulk of the adult members are the professional and married women of the middle classes, and to many of these the Y.W.C.A. is the chief link with people and ideas outside their immediate circle and provides a chance of doing social work. >' ■ , 1 ’ The programme of activities includes girls’ work, clubs for industrial women, mass education and co-operation in the church or the Government health and social betterment schemes. Up till the present students have formed a separate section of the movement. As in America and some other countries, student branches of the Y.W.C.A. take the place of the . Student Christian Movement in schools and colleges. The association does not confine itself to any ope class or section, and in China ■where 80 per cent, of the people are farmers no movement could call itself national unless it tried to extend its scope and programme to include rural: women. Three rural centres have been established.. To meet the minds of the farmer women, whose age-old way of life the 20th century had suddenly broken down, much experiment and study were necessary. In 1932, when delegates from the centres met at the national convention, at Shanghai the movement realised that all China was included an its commission—the farms as well as the factories from which an ever-growing number of industrial workers were entering the fellowship through clubs and classes. In 1935 there were 10,000 schoolgirls and students, professional and married women, farmers and factory- hands actively interested in the Y.W.C.A. movement. Tire Y.W.C.A. in China had institutes, hostels and branches in 51 cities and a staff of 101 secretaries. An interesting comparison was that whereas in August, 1935, the membership in China was 10,000, the New Zealand membership was 4500.