Hilary Knight Writes for YOUNG PEOPLE

OCKENDEN PEOPLE.
iN a letter in the "Observer" a few weeks ago, a list was given of some refugee organisations in this country together with ways in which individual people can help them either by gifts of money or personal service.
One item on the list read: "The Ockenden Venture (White Rose Lane, Woking, Surrey) provides training and education in England for refugee children, and under a new Family Trust Scheme is about to bring over some parents also. Short-term volunteer workers, with some aptitude for preparing and redecorating houses, are needed."
IT HAPPENED THIS WAY . .
sequently visit ed friends living in the country who had a 13-year-old Latvian boy. a Catholic, with pale red hair and a small white face, staying with them for the Christmas holidays, "He's an Ockenden Venture boy," they explained to me. I looked at him with a fresh wave of interest (in spite of the fact that, with other children, he was delightedly shooting at birds with an air-gun!)
And then, a few days later, a friend rang up and said: "I'm going to Woking tomorrow to visit the Ockenden Venture people. Would you like to come?" I said I would.
HOW IT HAS GROWN
THE headquarters of the Ockenden Venture is a medium-sized house in a medium-sized garden in Woking, where Miss Dixon, a co-founder, was sitting on the floor in front of a .fire, surrounded by mounds of letters (as a result of the "Observer" mention), She interrupted her work of answering these to give us an account of how she, and the other co-founder, Miss Pearce, back in 1953, had invited some 12 young girls from German D.P. camps over to England for a holiday, as part of Woking's "Festival of Britain" effort. From this unassuming beginning the Ockenden Venture has grown. It now has four houses in Woking, one in Hazlemere, and one (the largest, for boys) at Donington Hall in the north. All six houses are full of children from German D.P. camps who are being educated in various types of schools in England. They are selected at the German end by Mrs. Cheshire. (Sue Ryder),
Some "Ockenden" children Every child who conies has to have been "sponsored" to the tune of £150 a year. The sponsors consist of individuals and firms, and the children usually go to their sponsor for their holidays. Where the sponsor is a firm this is less likely to happen, and this is where families can help (such as my friends) even though not rich enough to he sponsors.
SOME OF THE CHILDREN
AT about 4.30 the girls (there are ten at the house I went to) came in from their schools, wind-blown, laughing, chatting, and all raving beauties as far as I could see, Miss Dixon made arrangements for me to meet them informally, so that it wasn't like looking at animals in the zoo. She invited a young rosychecked Pole to come and show me some photographs of the other houses, and casually crossed the hall with me as the three at a convent burst in at the front door and ran upstairs.
"The one in the middle was born at Belsen," she said. A tall boy from Donington, also a Pole, happened to be there, as he was going to a farm in southern England the next day, and we chatted with him too.
And their parents? Well. as Miss Dixon explained to me. the 22,000 refugees stilt in European camps are all what is called the Hard Core. Which means that they have not been able to be assimilated into other countries and start new lives. Why? Usually because of illness or age. The father. say, has T.B. (the occupational disease of D.P. camps) and no country wants to take in T.B. cases; his wife, naturally, won't leave him, and so the family stays put.
Or there's a large family unit, and the grandfather is too old to travel and start again, the family doesn't want to split up, so they all stay put, But now, with the Ockenden and other similar ventures, at least the children can get away. Do they see their parents? Yes. The Ockenden Venture, for instance. brought over a Polish father at Christmas to see his child (the mother is in a lunatic asylum).
NEW 'FAMILY' SCHEME
AND now the pie tire has changed, for the Home Office is allowing a cer amn number of T.B. cases into this country.
That is why the Ockenden Venture is starting the "Family Trust Scheme" mentioned above. How we can help the Venture now is not by feeling that unless we can sponsor a child we can do nothing. Any small amount of money is welcome, to help to bring a family over. Also our personal service will be welcome to help with preparing and redecorating the houses which the Venture is negotiating for to receive them. Also, I may add, there are 200 children, already sponsored, waiting to come when there are houses ready to receive them.
The Venture, perhaps I should add, is not specifically Catholic. It is Christian. But the children are to a great extent Catholic, being largely Poles.
OTHERS YOU CAN HELP
VIE letter in the "Observer" also mentions the Catholic buildingfor-refugees organisation in Belgium I told you about last year, whiCh welcomes volunteers. Address: Tongerlo, Antwerp, Belgium.
Fr. Pirc, who builds specifically for the Hard Core to which I have referred, doesn't accept volunteer labour, as we discovered last year. But, of course, he welcomes money.