The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

QRLD REFUGEE YEAR â€" Whether through the study of citizenship, or some other influence â€" personal human compassmn would have a lot to do with it t Women’s 1 Institute members have come a long way in understanding the truth that no man is an island; no country can live to itself; and that a malignant social condition anywhere may undermine the_health and safety of the whole world. So it is not surprising that when United Nations made‘its first appeal for funds to rehabilitate refugees in this World Refugee Year, the Women's Institutes of Ontario began making contributions even before it was announced that F.W.I.O. would support the project. In OCIOber an EWIO. \V/otld Refugee Year Fund was opened and contributions from the branches have been pouring in ever since. The idea of a World Refugee Year started with four young men from Britain who, at their own expense, went on a tour of refugee camps and came back so angry at what they had seen that they started a campaign to have something done about it. Under pressure of public opinion in Britain the problem was put before United Nations and 59 of the member governments H the number has since increased to 62 â€" agreed to declare the year, from June 1959 to June 1960, World Refugee Year. It is hoped that during this period the refugees can be cleared out of all the camps in Europe and that in other parts of the world such things can be under- taken as re-establishing handicapped refugees, re-sertling the European refugees in China, developing housing schemes in Hong Kong. _ But these and other needs can be met only if there are funds to pay for them, United Nations Will make its contribution;_ governments will help; but whether the Committee for World Refugee Year can do what it is setting out to do, will depend on the generosity of the people through voluntary Contributions. That is why every dollar subscribed by a W’nmen‘s Institute is important. It is not hard to imagine what life in a refugee camp can do to people. Most of the refugees were driven from their own countries by featâ€"fear of war, fear of religious persecution, fear of the gestapo, fear that through deportation the family would be broken up. The countries that took them in during and following the war could give them only makeshift shelterâ€"~old military barracks, remnants of bombed buildings, old concentration camps. Sometimes whole families have had to live in one room. They have no hope of a home life as we know it. There is little education for the children or training for youth or employment for a man's skills. The Red Cross helps with bare necessities, and even in the squalor of the camps some families manage to preserve a certain decency and dignity, hoping for a time when they can e5cape to normal living; when they can again have good schools and work and a home, a community and a country of their own. It is almost frightening to think of the effects of refugee camp life on children who have known no other way; and to think what these childrenâ€"hundreds of thousands of themâ€"if left to grow up in the camps, may some day do to the world. And since we are going to admit at least a few more refugees to Canada it is heartening to look back over history at what refugees have done for the countries that gave them sanctuary, how they have contributed to these countries, to their industries, their arts and their prosperity. We believe World Refugee Year will go down in \Vomen's Institute history as one of the worthiest of the many good causes the Institutes have supported. We tell ourselves, and rightly, that ours is not a money-making organization. If it is to attract and hold the young wives of the community and help them in their job of making homes it cannot ask them to spend a lot of time and labour raising funds. But doesn't a cause as big as the rehabilitation of refugees merit the interest of the whole community? Perhaps the most reasonable way to get the funds we need would be to hold a Variety Concert with the best home talent or the best local pro» fessional talent we can muster, or to have a dancPsomething special, like a Calico Ball: or to get up a play good enough to be invited for repeat performances to the little towns around. We might do a little preliminary work on public opinion by showmg refugee films, stirring up the public conscience, following the lead of the four angry young men who started the whole thing. WINTER woo