N. Caledonia Work Camp Criticised

Salient Reporter

New Caledonia was also the site of an NZUSA work camp last January, when students spent ten days at the mission school at Doneva.

Participants say the camp was rewarding and the trip itself enjoyable.

But they have also criticised NZUSA strongly for administrative bungling and for the nature of the work done at the camp.

The trip was originally promoted as a holiday in Noumea, staying in French homes, during January.

But students actually went in late January, and were billeted in a school hostel.

NZUSA did not confirm the trip itself until late December.

At the work camp, students dug a drain for the school water supply, painted and cleaned class-rooms, husked corn, and picked a trial crop of sunflower seeds.

"This was done." says one of the participants, "with little or no equipment, living on starchy food cooked in a kitchen crawling with cockroaches, with incredibly filthy washing facilities."

Students found labouring work in the tropical jungle physically exhausting.

But they won acceptance from the missionaries, at first sceptical of the student's worth.

One of the party. Miss Raelene Ramsay, is now spending one year at the mission teaching English.