Boys Feel Responsible

Te Ao Hou, December 1962, Page 27

Boys Feel Responsible Much of this comfort is due to the Company's concern for their welfare, but the big thing is that the boys have been led to feel responsible for the place, and, as a consequence, to be proud of it. They have been encouraged to acquire the facilities for many spare-time activities, but they have mostly raised the money for these things themselves; the TV and their expensive band instruments, for example, were paid for through their own fund-raising efforts. They know that they could ask the Company for money—but they take a pride in being independent. This pride is surely the reason for the spotless condition in which things are kept, and for the happy atmosphere there. During the peak season at the works there are up to 80 boys, nearly all of them Maori, living at the hostel, and even in the off-season there are about sixty of them. Nearly all of them are under 21 (after this, if they're not married they usually share a house with friends), and they come from all over New Zealand—from Waikato, Northland, Taranki, the East Coast, Wellington itself, and elsewhere. They get on very well at the Gear Meat Works, where 45 per cent of all the workers are Maoris; ‘we really welcome Maoris here,’ Mr Steve Watene, the Company's Welfare Officer, told ‘Te Ao Hou’. Maoris have a natural aptitude for the work, he said; provided a company looks after them, they are exceptionally good workers.