Order of Charity's new scheme
By Marian Curd
HUNDREDS of thousands of schoolchildren in Britain are to be invited during the coming school year, to play a part in an international campaign to bring relief to the fifteen million leprosy sufferers of the world.
The Scheme, suggested by school teachers and sponsored by the international and inter-denominational Order of Charity, will enable schools to adopt a leper hospital or mission about which they will receive regular information and for which they will make a regular contribution.
Each child will he encouraged to contribute one penny per week from his or her own pocket money. Whenever possible the money will be collected by the children themselves and purely on a voluntary basis.
The money thus collected will be forwarded to the Order of Charity which in this country has centres in London, Bristol and Birmingham. It will be forwarded to the mission or hospital without any deductions whatever for expenses. Receipts will be sent by the Order's secretary, but the children will later receive letters of thanks from the adopted hospital or mission.
TYPICAL
Typical examples of the extraordinary work being done by the Order of Charity are contained in the British Section's annual report, published this week.
During the past year more than £3.000 has been sent abroad to help leprosy work in hospitals, institutes, missions, in India, Pakistan, Malaya, The Sudan and Tanganyika.
A consignment of five hundredweights of bandages and clothes has been collected by members especially the Mother Teresa Committee — and despatched to Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
World Day for I.epers brought another resounding success for the British Section. Bishop Trevor Huddleston, Anglican Bishop of the Masasi Diocese in Tanganyika, appealed for — and received a new £1,000 Landrover for the use of his leprosy clinics.
A member over in Canada, Miss Yvette Leroy, collected nearly a ton of cotton which has been carried free of charge (by courtesy of the U.S. navy) and delivered to leprosy hospitals. From the remote mission of Nangpoh in Assam, came Fr, Balavoine on a visit to England: He went home the happier for meeting his English benefactors and has since had the added joy of a cheque for £500 (£250 of which was given by OXFAM) to complete a house for nursing sisters.
Membership of the Order of Charity has doubled in the past year and now stands at 600: a branch in Malta is thriving. and, there has been a merger in that the Midland committee for Aid to Lepers has now joined the ranks of the Order of Charity as the Birmingham Branch. • Enquiries may be sent to the Order of Charity at the most convenient centre—London : 9 Grosvenor Crescent, S.W.I. Birmingham: 148 Birmingham Road, Birmingham 22(A). Bristol: 19 Rokeby Avenue, Bristol 6. Malta: 93(e) Old Theatre Street, Valletta, Malta.