MISS RUTH WOODSMALL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21280, 25 February 1939, Page 10

MISS RUTH WOODSMALL

WORLD’S Y.W.C.A. SECRETARY TO VISIT WELLINGTON

New Zealand will shortly be entertaining a woman of international repute, Miss Ruth Woodsmall, general secretary of the World’s Young Women’s Christian Association

Miss Woodsmall, who was appointed to her present position on the Geneva staff of the Y.W.C.A. in 1934, is a master of arts of Wellesley College, Massachusetts, U.S.A. She is a woman of remarkably wide experience, versed not only in the knowledge of her own country of the United States, but qualified by years of work and stpdy and travel to speak with authority about conditions in the countries of Europe and of the Near and the Far East. During the war she was in France, in charge of hostess houses conducted by the Y.W.C.A. for women war workers, and in the 20 years since the war has done Y.W.C.A. work in many countries.

In the midst of a life crammed full of responsible work, Miss Woodsmall has found time to write books of outstanding importance on the emergence of the women of Oriental countries into prominence in public life. Her most recent bood is entitled “Moslem Women Enter a New World.”

The plans for Miss Woodsman’s work in New Zealand include visits to the chief centres, where conference groups will confer in round-table fashion about the major aims and scope and trends of the Y.W.C.A., not only in this country but in the 65 countries of the world where the Y.W.C.A. is established. The new pioneer work being undertaken by the World’s Y.W.C.A. takes in the Bohama Islands, the Gold Coast, and Surinam. Siam and Iran are under survey.

Miss Woodsmall will concentrate during her New Zealand visit upon the groups of women who form the volunteer and professional leadership of the Y.W.C.A., but in every centre which she visits there will be opportunity for the members and friends of the association to meet her.