On the 16 August 1944 the Council of Organisations for Relief Service Overseas (CORSO) was formed. One of the key figures in the development of the organisation was Sylvia Gytha de Lancey Chapman. During the Second World War Chapman represented the YWCA as a member and medical advisor of the Polish Children's Hospitality Committee. She studied Polish, hoping to visit Poland after the war, and also assisted many of the German refugees immigrating to New Zealand. On 16 August 1944 a historic meeting took place in Chapman's sitting room. Representatives of 12 churches and welfare organisations were concerned at the difficulty of giving aid to the millions of war sufferers: the homeless, the starving, and the desperately ill. That evening, the New Zealand Council of Organisations for Relief Service Overseas (CORSO) was born. The United Nations was founded in 1945, and CORSO agreed to combine with its Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to send a medical team, led by Chapman, to Greece. Archives New Zealand has film footage of the appeal made to the NZ public for supporting Greece after World War Two - www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_b59qWVmY [Our Debt to Greece - National Film Unit (1946)]
CORSO supported United Nations appeals for children in 1948 and 1950; world refugee year appeals in 1959 and 1960 and the freedom from hunger campaign appeal in 1962. The countries CORSO was heavily involved in included: Greece; Hong Kong; China; India and Korea. The organisation still exists today as a Non Government Organisation active in the areas of health, education, international development, human rights, the environment, youth, women and ethnicity.
The images presented here are from a range of files held at Archives New Zealand from different agencies. These files are all open access and can viewed in our Wellington reading room.
2. The image of the 1959 CORSO annual report is from a Treasury File: Council for Organisation for Relief Overseas 1945 - March 1978 [AALR 873 W4446 262 53/221 1] archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=22338421
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