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Te Ao Hou, August 1957, Page 62

artistic talents, the village people supplement their incomes, their products being sold in neighbouring villages or brought to the Colombo Sales Centre for disposal. Markets for their goods have also been found in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The elimination of illiteracy has its proper place in the work of the Lanka Mahila Samiti. Another aspect of education stressed by the Association, are the nursery schools staffed by trained voluntary Young and old came eagerly to be ‘educated’ at a school for beauty care organized by the Wellington Maori Adult Education Tutor, Mr W. Parker, at Ratana Pa recently. Attended by about thirty women for two week-ends, the school taught make-up, facial massage, removal of facial hair and similar topics. The teacher was Mrs Ziska Schwimmer. Mrs H. Brown shaping eyebrows of Mrs C. Hemi. Misses T. Tamati and B. Harris. (Photographs: Mr McKay.) teachers. These provide pre-school education for village children, many of whom show marked and beneficial changes of behaviour and noticeable improvements in mental and physical development after they have been attending for some time. Cultural and social aspects of village life are considered just as important as the educational and hygienic. Each Samitya organizes its own folk singing, cinema shows, lectures, educational tours as well as community harvesting and the transplanting of the rice paddies. What is being attempted is a complete transformation of village life which often prevents the migration of villagers to the towns where they are lured by the illusion of finding better and more “glamorous” lives. To prepare women who will go out into the villages and share the benefits of their specialized knowledge, the movement has set up a training centre at Kaduwela where, in spite of limited funds, about 100 young village women are trained each year. Here, the three months course includes rural development, adult and nursery education, civics and local government, and the theoretical and practical aspects of agriculture. Maternity and child welfare is taught by specialists with the aid of the health authorities, and so is rural sanitation and home management. Handicraft production and the marketing of the goods produced is also included in the course while in the social and cultural fields, the trainees learn to teach folk songs, dancing, drama, and ancient and modern decorative art and are also trained to address village groups. The Centre has its own nursery school which has become an indispensable and successful part of life in the district while providing practical courses in early childhood education. This school has received special praise from visiting United Nations specialists and from social workers. The enthusiasm which typifies all the students who pass out of the centre was demonstrated to me by a young woman I met named Menaka, who was in the last fortnight of the course. Before she had come in contact with the Lanka Mahila Samiti she was ignorant and uneducated and her sole occupation was looking after her young brothers and sisters. Her only desire was to escape from her village, to run away as her cousin had done, and become a domestic servant in the city. But now, all that had changed. She was confident, happy and ambitious. Her confidence came from her discovery of the dignity of the individual; her joy from her new-found knowledge. Now, her sole ambition was to share this happiness and knowledge with the less fortunate people of her home village on the East coast of Ceylon. She had been modelled into a good citizen, conscious of her duties and rights, realising that rights come only from duties well performed. Thanks to the centre at Kaduwela, Menaka and thousands of other women workers of the Lanka Mahila Samiti are helping to transform the life of their villages and of their country. (UNESCO).