RELIEF FOR CHINA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 179, 12 November 1941, Page 6

RELIEF FOR CHINA

AID FOR ABANDONED CHILDREN ORGANISED IN SHANGHAI

FINDING HOMES AND WORK

Faccd with increasing dilfiiculties and greater work due to the everrising cost of living here, the Shanghai Municipal Council's Industrial and Social Division has been working overtime 1 in recent months to find homes for abandoned Chinese children. The division, headed by Miss Eleanor Hinder, reports that economic conditions prevailing in this city have "induced abandonment of children" and the division lias been hard put to secure proper homes for such waifs. However, a new social worker made available by the Community Church, the continued operation of a children's nursery by the National Child Welfare Association, and a grant of £5000 by the American Advisory Committee for Relief in China, have enabled the division to hold its own. In China it is not considered morally or legally wrong for a parent to> abandon his child in times of overpowering difficulties. Frequentlj' children are sold outright by their parents when economic circumstances' seem to warrant it. The work of the division is to eradicate that feeling and to find homes and work for those children who have been separated from their parents. During May, the division has just reported, applications for adoptions by nine families were approved after careful investigation and 15 other applications were received on which investigations were still being made. Altogether 82 cases of young people in need were handled during the month. Of these, 25 were finally returned to their homes after proper adjustments had been made. Efforts continued to find employment and it was announced that in the last IS months :C>B young people have been located in jobs and are Still at work. However, the rising cost of living and the curtailment of power here by factory employers has made it increasingly difficult to find sueli work since employers arc disinclined to hire new hands under prevailing conditions. Education of delinquents continues, with three institutions seeking to rehabilitate those turned over to them by the division. "Programmes in these institutions definitely planned to develop new attitudes are producing results," the report states. "This is education in its truest sense."