IN EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2400, 4 March 1915, Page 9

IN EGYPT

WORK OF THE Y.M.O.A. . Mr. William Owens, 8.A., . special Secretary with the First Australian Expeditionary Force, writing from Cairo to Mr. -Gillanders, general secretary at Sydney, says:— _ ; "Things are going exceedingly well here. In the shade of the Pyramids the Y.M.O.A. is doing its much-appreciated, work. When, we landed : in Egypt the Y.M.OiA. secretaries ,got together .to deride. on operations. It was • impossible to obtain* large tents from the military for the simple reason that they are not obtainable m Egypt, 60 we decided to. build large-native nuts capable of holding 2000 men. at a push.. These were put up in quick time by native.labour, and soon ready for the troops. _ After paying for furniture and equipment, etc., tho expenditure, was well on the way to £100, but if , ever money was -well spent this was. "Cairo is a city teeming with .vice. There is everything there that will make a man physically and morally unfit. Our problem wa6 to make life in camp after hours attractive. In addition to that, to tell the boys straight what were the moral dangers they were faced with. This we have done, and the result is, thatthe Y.M.O.A. has .attained a higher prestige among these 'men than ever it did before.