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

Letters to the Editor Dear Home at Country: I do enjoy my Home and Country. and t particulary enjoyed the spring issue with your editorial on computers. As you can see from this effort I have just recently acquired a computer and am trying to master word processing, particularly so that I can write both fiction and non- fiction on it, and edit without having to copy the whole thing over again. This past winter I visited in Kenya. where my sister and her husband were living for a year. While I was there IUI the month of December I kept hearing stories of the wonderful work being done by the East African Women's League. I did not get to a meeting for that is holiday time there for schools and organizations, but iusl before I left, I did get in on a work session on posters which must he made tip tn Swahili for the schools as innocuiation sessions were held each week. I felt that the East African Women‘s League was much like our Institutes would have been like in their earliest days and was very impressed. However, most of the women that I had met were, like my sister, very new members, and had no idea it the league was a sister nrganilalion. When I returned I began to investigate, but no one at the local or district level was able to answer my question. However, (aertrttde Noble, who is our local representative to the provincial board. was able to affirm the relationship, Is there any way in which the story ol the very important work being done in Kenya could be told in our ()ntario publication? Mrs. A. M. Auch Palmerston Editor's note: I will look into this story. It sounds" interesting. Editoriv Note: This letter was sent to the Kite/tener- Waterloo Record on bl’liflifoLI” members of Bruce Son/it District WI and is reproduced in Home and Country so that 0!! WI Irterrtbers couId read the rebuttal, 6 Sheila Hannon‘s coverage of the Officers' Conference of the Federated Women’s Institute of Ontario (6 May, 1933) is questioned by members of the Bruce South District. Federated Women's institute of Ontario. Hannon devoted a third of her article to the opinions of leaders of three other associations regarding the F.W.I.O. None of these persons attended the conference. Two had impromptu telephone interviews and the third made her quote in 1981. Where is the relevancy? Not one of them has ever been a F.W.I.O. member, nor has any one of them worked with “The Institute" over a prolonged period. All have spoken to F.W.I.O. groups but otherwise have had little associaâ€" tion with our society. One had conâ€" sulted with a provincial executive officer. Each of the three is a specialist in her own organization: Gisele Ireland, Concerned Farm Women, Bruce and Grey Co. A interested in "financial problems of the farmer"; Gerry Fortune, Federation of Agriculture. Huron County « deals with “gut issues in agriculture" and Valerie Bolton, Women Today, Huron County - fostering “women’s self help and advocacy groups". If Hannon had researched she would know that the F.W.I.O. (F.W.I.C. and A.C.W.W.) has a much broader scope of interest than has any one of these more insular societies. At home the Women’s institute has helped shape many improveâ€" ments: libraries in rural centres and schools, doctors and nurses in schools, music training in schools, flashing lights on school buses, safety deVices on machinery, ingredient listings on food packages and the painted centre line on paved roads. The F.W.I.O. and F.W.I.C. have fought pornography for many years and it is only now that other groups and politicians have recognized that the degradation of women and children is corrupting our society. For some time we have been working toward other social reforms affecting women: equal pay for equal work, equal pensions, an end to sexual harassment, sexual abuse and child abduction. The F.W.I.O. we», quietly but steadily to keep rho: issues before the politicians thus 1; ,. ing the foundation for reio Perhaps we will have to become m it ‘. visible and vocal to gain rr recognition and clout. The Institute is changing, at .t slowly. This past Offic. Conference has been an impetu accelerate change. The Ministrj Agriculture and Food under Knox, Director, Rural Organ lions and Services Branch and J, Canning, Rural Organizations ordinator is providing direction support, Perhaps we are still see tea-drinking, quilt-making hc bodies, but is that not an elite irn Tea drinking is universal; quilt r ing is an art recognized by s galleries and patrons of the am. even the Hon. Judy Erola discm that the homebody image is not to be put down. Our membership is becoming c as is our society. Older does not n useless. Most great achievement history, philosophy, science, Sl craft and the arts are made by ! sons between 40 and 70, when - has knowledge. understandt wisdom and discernment. It is ho: that useless members are a mino and realize their error. It is no do true some of us make up our mi, and close them with a one way i per, but this is not a trait UanUt the old. Many years ago a Royal Bank Canada publication read, “We ourselves an injury by killing part our minds when we reject contrau tion. refuse to hear the other side the story of oppose opinions with learning facts". Harmon has moved us to resear and assess the work of the F.W.l.( contact each of the three perso quoted in the article, and move out our “rut” to voice our views. Tht her article has merit despite its 31'- biguity. Perhaps next year she delve into the background of ti F.W.[.O., F.W.I.C. and A.C.W.Vto discover just how advantaged. the associations are to persons yourt and old, rural and urban, Ontariai Canadian, and foreign. More letters page 2