New Guinea Scholarship

Fund Is Not Closed

SINCE the New Guinea Women’s Club of Sydney decided some months ago not to work to extend the Memorial Scholarship to New South Wales, and Mrs. Clare May wrote to the PIM on the same subject, there seems to be some misunderstanding in some quarters re garding the Fund.

We have been asked to state that the Fund definitely has not closed. The Hon. Secretarv of the Fund, on the con trary, will be pleased to accept your do nations larere or small. The secretary is, of course, Miss Dorothy Stewart, Cosmo politan Hotel, Rabaul, New Guinea.

Donations to the Fund are even more welcome now than ever as it is expected that four children will, this year, be benefitting from the Fund in Victoria.

To date, the scholarships have been tenable only in Victoria, as each Aus tralian State has a separate education scheme of its own and it was in Victoria that the idea of a Fund originated. The children who benefit in the first instance are those who lost a parent (or parents) during the war.

About last October Miss Stewart wrote to New Guinea women’s organisations in other States of Australia suggesting that they might work for a scholarship in their State (presumably drawing to some ex tent on funds already collected). The idea was turned down by the New Guinea Women’s Club of Sydney for reasons al ready published in PIM. But the Bris bane New Guinea Association has decided to participate and to endeavour to raise some money with this in view.

It is calculated that by approximately 1956 there will no longer be any children domiciled in Australia who are eligible and then the scholarship will be avail able in Papua-New Guinea for the children of ex-servicemen When this time comes the administration of the Scholarship will be much easier.