Community Action For Pre-School Services - 1945 Variety

The WW2 hostilities were rapidly drawing toward ceasefire and the daunting task of creating an enduring peace.

New political boundaries, new political powers, new social expectations, post-war economics and reconstruction.

"Bringing the men home" was the mantra.

Home to a society much different from whence they embarked.

Nilss of Innsbruck brings us another insight into how our local community addressed its needs and wants in that era.

The Age, 07.08.1945, Page 4

PRE-SCHOOL CARE IN HEIDELBERG

"An interesting community movement for pre-school child welfare is in progress in the city of Heidelberg, and involves men and women from Ivanhoe and Eaglemont to Rosanna, of varying income, social and religious groups, who are working happily together to plan a building, make equipment, assist with the children at the groups, prepare playing areas and raise money, and for this purpose an American tea is being arranged for Saturday, August 11, at Scots Hall, Burgundy-street, Heidelberg.

Attractions will include aprons, underwear, sun suits, knitted goods, babies' wear, toys, produce, pony cart rides and a movie session for children.

The Heidelberg Pre-School Centre Association committee's activity is of significance, as it is one of the pioneering efforts to put into operation an extension of the  programme of child care from two to five years, following the baby health centre.
[..]
No building — hall, vacant barn or shop — is available in the district for temporary use, so the association intends to build the minimum requirements at once with as much voluntary labor as possible, and this later will be expanded into a modern nursery-kindergarten building on land which has been purchased adjacent to shopping and other facilities.

Meanwhile group activities take place in private gardens, but accommodation and playing space are limited, especially in bad weather, so that the children are divided into smaller groups, attending on fewer days.

The association is at present entirely dependent on voluntary donations."

Being a 1952 post-war baby I do not claim to understand the WW2 aftermath - public administration, public finances, each level of government's priorities, the dearth of building materials..........

What I find most insightful in this August 1945 article is that local and State government roles, and funds, are not mentioned.

The attitude of the day was to just pitch in and do it.

The other unstated element is that present day tyrannies and hypersensitivities of planning, zoning, building regulations, insurances, risk management, gluten free, gender, abilities and more do not dominate thinking to the point paralysis sets in.

Just get on and do it. Do something.