NEW ZEALANDERS HELP THAI VILLAGERS AT THEIR "OWN LEVEL"

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 69, 2 September 1965, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS HELP THAI VILLAGERS AT THEIR

"OWN LEVEL"

Mr Ivan Short, a Tokoroa chemist who returned home recently after two years' service with his wife in a New Zealand Yolunteer Service Abroad medical team in north-east Thailand, gave his impressions on the scheme in an address to the Putaruru Rotary Club r

The scale of aid required by the developing countries of the Pacific and Asia was so great that only governments could handle it, but there was a body of thought which considered that men of goodwill could provide a contact from the West by living with the local people at their own level, said Mr Short. They could handle many small scale projects which were too small or too "offbeat" for governments to notice. This was the type of work lindertaken by Volunteer Service Abroad, the New Zealand organisation which developed from the work of Volunteer Graduates, mainly in Indonesia. Volunteer Service Abroad received moral support, advice and administrative services from the Government. Because there was no charge against administration, all funds received were used for volunteers in the field, Mr Short explained. Any organisation or person could sponsor an individual to serve overseas as long as a contribution of

£6,00 was volunteered for each of two years. Volunteer Service Abroad now had 48 people in the field, more than 20 of them adults and the remainder workers under the associated School Leavers' Scheme. Farm Training Mr Short said that Volunteer Service Abroad was looking for people with a variety of professions and skiTls, but particularly for men with a formal agricultural training. Of the 30 million people in Thailand, a country about two and a half times the size of New Zealand, 80 per cent. were peasant farmers living on a subsistence level, stated the speaker. They grew enough rice to feed themselves — and no more.

There was no upper class and what middle class there was lived in provincial centres or in Bangkok, so the 80 per cent. in the small villages had no medical services or tradesmen. Mr and Mrs Short were attached to a team working in north-east Thailand on a medical unit pilot project. This team was given a twoyear task of reporting to

Seato on the feasibility of providing medical attention to the villages. "There are no medical services at all now," Mr Short stated. "They are only in the provincial centres and most of the peasants could not alford the treatment there anyhow." Rice Eeonomy Thailand had three seasons, dry, wet and the socalled cold season, he continued. The wet season lasted for four months and

with its onset at the end of June or early in July every able-bodied person was in the fields frantically planting rice. They wanted to obtain as long a growing season as possible in the four months before the rain stopped. Then, when this happened, everyone was out harvesting, threshing and storing the rice. For the rest of the year the farmers had nothing to do. Teenage members of their families would go to Bangkok to work and when they returned for the next rainy season they would have saved between £5 and £10. This was the only cash their families would have for anything which required money. While farmers were doing nothing, members of the

Good Nejghbour team and Volunteer Service Abroad came in, said Mr Short. "We can't tell the farmer what to do," he stated. "It is necessary to show him at his own level what benefits he can obtain from, for instance, planting vegetables during the dry season. With irrigation it is possible to grow crops like tobacco and vegetables, for which there is a considerable demand in the larger towns. "The Good Neighbour team has obtained publicity for building two schools, but it obtained far greater impact when it was able to interest farmers in vegetable growing. This kind of contact gets results out of all oroportion to the numbers involved."