Rural communities should not have to accept second-class services, says Rural Women NZ's new president Ellen Ramsay, who has pledged to do something about it.
Formerly known as WDFF (Women's Division of Federated Farmers), the revamped group will focus on what it calls the second-rate services that communities outside the
urban centres are expected to accept.
She said that since the mid-1980s, once-thriving rural communities had undergone a social upheaval. Country post offices, police stations, banks and stock and station agencies had been closed in the name of the market economy.
As farming operations struggled to survive, there was little money to hold remaining services and they closed or left.
Mrs Ramsay, who grew up at Moonlight in East Otago, trained as a nurse in Dunedin and had 10 years' experience as a stock agent's wife before taking up farming, said the battle to halt the decline of rural communities and infrastructure was only just starting.
There were initiatives under way and she intended to drive them even faster than in the past as, in some communities, the decline was "heartbreaking".
Mrs Ramsay, who lives in Palmerston, has been in the front line of Rural Women NZ as it rebranded itself. The organisation has in its ranks accountants, lawyers, nurses, teachers and transport operators.
"Rural Women was not setting out to change the world," said Mrs Ramsay. But it believed education and health services were barely adequate and had to be improved.
The organisation, she said, felt it had to go beyond holding meetings where the issues were discussed, people felt better and went home.
"We have been aware that, since the rural downturn of the 1980s, many of our members are back in the workforce.
"As we haven't the numbers to be heavily involved in voluntary work, we have, in recent years, taken up the challenge of developing a commercial nationwide home-care service."
Access Homehealth is the business arm of the organisation.
Its profits are targeted at areas of the community with the emphasis on education and health.
Mrs Ramsay says the business funds regional development officers who organise events, activities and opportunities for rural communities, focusing on the needs of women.
The development officers worked on a mix of promoting issues and following up with action.
Members were encouraged and helped to get on to school boards, and more recently district health boards.
Behind the scenes, Rural Women NZ was pushing for better monitoring for cervical and breast screening. Mental health services had deteriorated to an appalling state, she said.
The group intended helping to arrange relief service for those caring for family members with special needs.
Rural Women is involved in issues such as a more equitable approach to the country school bus system and boarding school allowances.
Other action has included a $135,000 donation to leptospirosis vaccine research.
The group has also been active in the genetic modification debate and brought Swiss biotechnology scientist Professor Klaus Ammann to New Zealand to address its annual conference.
Mrs Ramsay said the organisation's development officers were available to help people set up small business, and to help women in legal areas such as succession planning or matrimonial property issues.
"In 75 years, we've come a long way from the days when we were farmers' wives, trailing along behind our husbands and looking for something to do during farmer meetings," she said.
- NZPA
Rural Women
Rural communities should not have to accept second-class services, says Rural Women NZ's new president Ellen Ramsay, who has pledged to do something about it.
Formerly known as WDFF (Women's Division of Federated Farmers), the revamped group will focus on what it calls the second-rate services that communities outside the
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