Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 5. April 2 1968

Is the V.S.A. all talk?

Is the V.S.A. all talk?

Now that Volunteer Service Abroad is a firmly established organisation it is time to investigate just how far its basic ideal has been realised, and whether it does more than make statements about martyrdom and nationalism.

Much has been written recently about international aid and New Zealand's role in this field. There has been a probing publication and a conference from the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, a Pacific supplement in the Universities' magazine Focus—all of these reaching the same conclusion—that our international aid should be increased. Most people sympathise with this point of view and citicise the various administrations for their apathy. It is trite that the Government should increase its financial contributions to aid programmes such as the various United Nations bodies.

But a nation's wealth lies in its people. This cliche is particularly applicable to N.Z. We do not have vast resources for capital investment, but we have at our disposal a form of aid, the success of which can not be defined in financial terms. But it often does far more than millions of dollars given out of a sense of paternal benevolence rather than out of a sense of mutual co-operation.

The person who goes as a volunteer can offer a unique form of aid. He can be from any section in our society, with either professional, practical or academic skills, prepared for a short period of time to utilise his skills in the interest of another people. Whether he is wholly sympathetic with their way of life is not a criterion for giving aid to a particular country. If not sympathetic before going overseas, he may soon become so. Such a form of aid is, after all, a system of mutual education.

The volunteer worker, more than a U.N. or similar expert, is prepared to be flexible and to learn from the people with whom he is working, as well as imparting his knowledge. He realises that he is just a minor labourer working on a small section of the road which is leading the developing country to eventual economic and social maturity.

The test comes when such a person leaves the overseas country, no matter with what task he is concerned, or under whose auspices he is doing it. Does the project with which he was concerned collapse, or does it thrive and progress? With Volunteer Aid, where individual rather than collective relationships are involved, the project's chances of being a success are often enhanced.

V.S.A. Doctor John McKinnon, of Timaru, gives a roadside consultation in the Everest region of Nepal. This Sherpa had double pneumonia but was still carrying an 80lb. load.

V.S.A. is a form of extra-government aid and is therefore not totally subject to the political whims of government although it does receive a substantial financial grant and assistance from the External Affairs Department. Being secular, it provides a way for all New Zealanders to experience life in another culture, at the same time offering something different to that culture.

Has this form of aid been a success? Can it expand even further and contribute more to our aid programme? The number of volunteers actually overseas has increased from 16 to 1964 to more than 100 in 1968, and this supports an affirmative answer.

Perhaps the most significant pointer to its success, however, is the increasing number of requests For New Zealand Volunteer Aid, particularly technicians and graduates. From this it would seem that the ideals are being realised, for when individuals are involved an impression must be made, and the volunteer must become accepted by the people with whom he is working in order to achieve any success at all.

Money can be accepted with no thought of personal relationships between donor and recipient.

There is theoretically, no limit to where N.Z. volunteers may be sent if the need arises.

Volunteers have served in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, South Vietnam, Brunei, South Korea, the British Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa.

V.S.A. Worker Gordon Inglewood, who is working with the N.Z. Jaycee-sponsored V.S.A. development team at Nampong in N.E. Thailand, gives a villager practical instruction in using and maintaining an irrigation pump.

adaptability

Adaptability is essential for anybody chosen for such volunteer work. Volunteers go as teachers, engineers, accountants, agricultural advisors, doctors and nurses, surveyors, skilled tradesmen—as the organisation grows, so does the diversity of assignments to which New Zealanders are sent.

Such projects as the Good Neighbour team in Thailand, Kampong New Zealand in Malaysia, the Sherpa hospital in Nepal and the improvement of marketing techniques in Western Samoa have had noticeable social and economic effects on the host communities. The less glamourous work—teaching or personnel training—has its own intrinsic attractions, providing the volunteer with his own satisfaction—perhaps the knowledge that his presence in a particular area means that for one or two years children learning English will have a teacher for whom it is the native tongue, and whose way of life it totally different to their own.

What the volunteer gives up in the way of material things may be great, but what he gains in understanding of his fellow men more than compensates.

reward

For the person who volunteers it is a weighty decision. V.S.A. is not the kind of thing that can be sold, it is not a product manufactured with the idea of selling to as many people as possible. The reward is often intangible but it comes with the knowledge that one is for a short time a member of another community, the guest of another village or family, one whose visit will probably never be forgotten by host or guest. At the same time the volunteer is part of an extremely important form of international aid, and is helping to strengthen the bonds of co-operation between N.Z. and various countries of the world.

Volunteer Service Abroad workers in Samoa, Judy Beere, a graduate from Victoria University, is weaving blinds for the fale.