China Relief Work
Bertram also travelled throughout the country as Appeals Organizer for the Council of Organizations for Relief Services Overseas (CORSO), directing aid to MmeSoong Ch'ing-ling's orphanages and to Rewi Alley's Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (also known by the abbreviation Indusco or the Chinese name(Gung-Ho). He considered that "Alley's reputation at the time was comparable with that of a Dr Schweitzer or a Mother Teresa...The Bailie Training School at Sandan in the far north-west remained as a nursery of Chinese industrial apprentices and cooperative organizers, with Alley as its headmaster and inspiration."
In 1940 Bertram had acted as intermediary for Rewi Alley in an effort to secure 150 New Zealand stud sheep for Alley's Bailie School in Gansu. Due to chaotic war time conditions, the sheep were offloaded in Calcutta and in 1944 were rediscovered in Tibet. In 1946 the chance came again for Bertram to help get New Zealand sheep to the Bailie School. An UNRRA ship was taking a stud flock to China and Bertram organised a public appeal, as a result of which an additional 50 sheep were purchased and earmarked for the Bailie School. In 1986, nearly 40 years later, Bertram finally visited Sandan and saw the descendants of the original flock.
Read more about this topic: James Munro Bertram
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