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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 6. 1965.

Good Neighbours For Asia

Good Neighbours For Asia

Neil Bellingham leader of the VSA "Good Neighbour" team and sir Edmund Hillary, president of VSA, in the village of Huaykla, North-eastern Thailand.

Neil Bellingham leader of the VSA "Good Neighbour" team and sir Edmund Hillary, president of VSA, in the village of Huaykla, North-eastern Thailand.

Take two New Zealand carpenters, a schoolmaster, a young farmer turned mechanic; assure their subsistence in an Asian Country for two years, attach a young man as an interpreter and full partner; and say to them in effect "Go into the countryside, live among the people, and make friends with them. Find what they wish to do to develop their lands and improve their village— and get to work to help them."

Very roughly, that was the recipe Rotary used in sponsoring the team of volunteers who went to Huaykla in North-east Thailand, early last year. It was a recipe for co-operation—and has proved a good one. The first joint job was to build a school. The villagers of Huaykla named it "The New Zealand Friendship School." Now the New Zealanders are known throughout the surrounding district as the "Good Neighbour Team," a second school has been built, irrigation works extended, a pump installed and trials begun with new crops to vary the predominantly rice diet.

The Thai Government has shown its approval by asking that a second Good Neighbour Team be sent to carry on the work of the first when its two-year term ends, and by inviting Volunteer Service Abroad to send more teams to help raise farm production in backward parts of the country.

Mr. Neil Bellingham, B.Sc, leader of the Good Neighbour Team, is now in New Zealand reporting to Rotary, talking to other interested audiences, and explaining the work to would-be volunteers. He is to speak at Victoria University on June 10 at a meeting organised by the Asian Studies Society.

As well as looking for Volunteers for these new teams. V.S.A. needs graduate volunteers for many different positions in developing countries. Anyone interested will have a chance to discuss volunteering with Mr. Bellingham when he visits the university.