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Kathleen Hall was a New Zealand missionary nurse in China who was swept up in the war against Japan. Not only did she nurse the sick and wounded, but time and time again she smuggled medical supplies through the Japanese lines to Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian surgeon who was in charge of medical services for the Chinese 8th Route Army.

The He Ming Qing (Kathleen Hall) Memorial Scholarship is established by the New Zealand China Friendship Society Inc. to provide three-year scholarships for Chinese from poor rural areas enabling them to complete nursing training in order to return to their villages and work for improved health standards. This scholarship replaces the previous Kathleen Hall Centennial Memorial Scholarship, which ran for ten years.

This picture of Kathleen was probably taken at Songjiazhuang, 1936

Kathleen with four of her nurses, probably at Anguo Hospital, 1937

Kathleen's statue at Songjiazhuang

Kathleen Hall was born in Napier, New Zealand in 1896 and later moved to Auckland. There she trained at Auckland Public Hospital.

In 1922 she was accepted by the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for missionary work in China. Before leaving New Zealand she successfully undertook midwifery training at St Helen's hospital in Christchurch.

In North China at that time there was one outstanding hospital where western medicine was practised, the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC). It was a very advanced institution, funded by the American Rockefeller Foundation and operated by British and American Protestant missions.

After several years language training and professional practice there, Kathleen was appointed Sister-in-Charge of a provincial hospital at Datong, later being transferred to the same position at Hejian and Anguo in Hebei Province.

She became acquainted with the deplorable living conditions in the Hebei mountains and in 1934 she obtained the permission of her Bishop to leave the cities and set up her own cottage hospital in the mountain village of Songjiazhuang.

In 1937 she had to return temporarily to take charge of the hospital at Anguo on the plains and she was in charge there when the Japanese invaded.

There was a great battle nearby, the Chinese were defeated and hers was the only hospital for hundreds of miles. The doctors fled and with a few Chinese nurses she was left to deal with many hundred casualties.

As the Japanese pushed southwards, she was able to return to her own hospital in the mountains, to find that it was now in "no-man's land" between the Chinese guerilla forces and the Japanese. With her British passport she could move comparatively freely, and before long she was making long journeys to Peking to purchase medical supplies, much of which she passed on to the Chinese army, until caught by the Japanese.

They put her on a ship for New Zealand, but she disembarked at Hong Kong and joined the Chinese Red Cross. She made a dangerous journey through inland China to rejoin the 8th Route Army. Eventually she was struck down with beriberi, and repatriated to New Zealand.

After the war the helped to establish a model leper colony in Hong Kong, and in her final years of service she worked with the Anglican Maori Mission at Te Kuiti and Waitara.

In retirement she devoted her life to telling New Zealanders the truth about China. She worked very hard to bring the various Friendship groups in Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch together to form the NZ-China Friendship Society, which was inaugurated in Wellington in 1958, with Kathleen as a member of the first National Committee.

She was able to revisit China twice more, in 1960 and 1964. She died in Hamilton in 1970.

In 1993 a delegation of friends and relatives carried her ashes back to China in accordance with her wishes.

In 1996 the local people of Quyang County celebrated the centennial of her birth by creating a beautiful marble statue and setting it up in the village of Songjiazhuang where she had established her clinic.

A China Today article published in 1997 describes this moving event, and gives more details of Kathleen's life.

In 2000, her clinic was rebuilt with a donation of $15,000 from our Society, which has been tripled by a subsidy from the N.Z. Government. The completion of the rebuilding project was celebrated in June 2000 and the clinic was officially reopened in July 2001. Click here to view pictures of both celebrations.

Wei Yunjie is the first recipient of the He Ming Qing scholarship.

She was born in 1986 and comes from Chuang Shang Village in Huanjiang County southwest of Guilin. Wei Yunjie is Maonan, one of the smaller ethnic groups in China with approximately 90,000 mostly living in Guangxi. Huanjiang is the only Maonan Autonomous County in China. Wei Yunjie says she wants to be a nurse because the Huanjiang hospitals are not good and need better-qualified staff; her father had liver disease from which he died.

Sally Russell, NZCFS Projects Committee, was asked to set up the first scholarship in Guangxi Province in collaboration with the Guangxi Women's Federation (GWF). They organised the first recipient through their Children's Affairs Department, which has a long-standing Guangxi Children & Teenagers Fund (the Spring Bud Project) which pays school fees for poor village girls. The GWF has established 'girls only' classes to encourage Yao minority parents to allow their daughters to be educated. It raises money from individuals, companies and NGOs. They have experience in assisting students in their studies.

The Guangxi Medical University selected Wei Yunjie according to our criteria of a poor rural student. She came to the GWF office so they could meet her.

In her application for the Spring Bud project, Wei Yunjie states that there are four in the family: mother and two brothers and herself. Only two members are able to work, their income for 2006 was 700RMB, and the total grain they received was 100kg. The opinion of the Guangxi Medical University is that Wei as a good scholar with excellent character whose family is facing extreme financial difficulties. That opinion is echoed by the GWF.

There is a signed agreement between the student, the university and the GWF in the name of He Ming Qing. Wei Yunjie started her four-year study in September 2006 at the Guangxi Medical University in Nanning. She is now more than half-way through her second year. The scholarship is valued at 7000 RMB or about NZ$1300 per year. It pays for her tuition fees, extra costs for experiments, teaching materials, travel, insurance and uniform as well as approximately 65% of her costs for board.

The Guangxi Provincial Women's Federation provided NZCFS with the following report in September 2007:

2006/9/14 Report of Wei Yunjie's situation funded by NZCFS

Dear Lady Sally from NZCFS,
In September 2006, NZCFS funded Wei Yunjie who came from Class 14, Grade 06 of [the] Nurses Institute of Guangxi Medical University based on the contact of Guangxi Women's Federation and Guangxi Child and Young Fund. On Sep 12, 2007, GX WF and Guangxi Child and Young Fund sent workers to visit Nursing Institute, to know how Wei Yunjie's life is in the past year. After arranging with her class teacher, they had a discussion with Wei Yunjie and her classmates (class student leaders and roommates) separately concerning her study , life and work was in the following report:

Evaluation from teacher and classmates
The teacher and classmates said: Wei is a simple and plain person, and frugal. She has an open character and gets on well with classmates, and she likes to help others. She is enthusiastic to serve the class, even through she wasn't the class leader in the first term, but she worked with the class committee for a lot of work. She joined the environment organization in the school, worked actively, and she has definite capability in coordination and organization. From this term, she was recommended to work in the secretary department of Student Committee of the Nursing Institute. For the study, she worked very hard, and spent a lot of effort, but her grades were not ideal, below the class average. This is probably because she was not so prepared for the academic life in the university and has not yet mastered study methods properly. Because of her poor family, she would have been sad, but she can adjust very quickly. She said to the classmate that she would like to work in county level hospital after graduation.

Assessment from the institute
In the past year, Wei Yunjie obeyed the rules, was never absent, never late, never left early from class, and rested on time, obeyed school management, got on well with classmates, good to help others, unite classmates, joined group actives actively, joined the Environment Association of Guangxi Medical University, went to several universities to propagandize environmental protection, and was survey team leader of Red Forest Ecology Resource Project in Qinzhou city, where she brought her team to do the survey on living environment of people living by the sea. She also joined the activity " go to visit the elderly in the Welfare House", and joined the volunteer association of Guangxi Medical University. In study, she passed Band 4 of University English, and Mandarin Level 2, her scores were good, but still need improvement. Wei Yunjie is a good student who has good study habits and good character.

Self evaluation and her effort direction
She said, in the past year, even though her family was very poor, they had support from society, and she felt lucky she could come to study in the university. She had studied very hard, but did not do very well in the examinations. She fell guilty for the low grades, but she said she would continue to study hard, raise the scores. She practiced herself a lot. And she also joined Volunteer Association in the university, and public benefit activity, repaid the love to society by her action.

Wei's scores in a year
Scores in Term 1:
Basic chemistry 67, physics of medicine 68,English 1 76, anthropotomy 61, law and morality 75, cytology Pass, sanitation law Pass.

Scores in Term 2:
History 69, English 2 75, gym 81, embryology 63, computer application base 62, biochemistry 67.

The work and arrangement in future
In the past year, Guangxi Women's Federation and Guangxi Child and Young Fund had great concern for Wei Yunjie's study, life and work, and sent a worker to see how she was in the school, and give her advice.
1 I sent worker three times to talk with Wei Yunjie, and to know what was going on with her study, life, education, and encourage her to study hard, overcome difficulties, try to get good grades, report to the supporters, actively participate in society practice activity, improve herself, try to be a useful women in society.
2 I will contact Nursing Institute of Guangxi Medical Universality by visit or phone, and talk to the school, try to do the coordination work between supporter and the person who is supported.
3 I will send the fund to school on time, in order that the student can go to school on time.
4 Know how the student's study and life are, and tell the supporter.

(SEAL) Guangxi Women's Federation Guangxi Child and Young Fund. 2007/9/14

From 1996-2005 the NZ-China Friendship Society Inc. in association with N.Z. Nurses Organisation Inc. awarded the Kathleen Hall Centennial Memorial Scholarship to provide an award of $1,500, later raised to $3,000, for a New Zealand Registered Nurse to undertake graduate study in an area of nursing in the community.

Past winners
There have been 9 scholarship winners since then, all of whom captured the spirit of Kathleen Hall in their applications.

Christine Darkins (Tina) won the Kathleen Hall Centennial Memorial Scholarship 2005, when she completed the 2nd year of her PhD in nursing at AUT. As part of her study, Tina undertook a research project exploring community organisations in the areas of health & social services in Northland to identify factors that contribute to there success and the difficulties they face. Northland is acknowledged as being one of the most disadvantaged areas in NZ. Tina wanted to develop a tool that will assist families in locating local community services, that will also inform policy makers and planners for the future, enhance community development and build on the strengths of a local community-based service run by local people within the community.

Gabrielle Gallagher, a nurse at the Roskill Family Health Centre, was the 2004 Kathleen Hall Scholar. Gabrielle did a Masters Degree in Nursing to enable her to achieve Nurse Practitioner status and be able to work with more groups in the community.

The recipient of the Scholarship for 2002 was Jenny Caston, a Plunket District Nurse in Avondale (Auckland) who has worked in Kenya and Tanzania as well as London and Onehunga. With this scholarship, she undertook a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health at Auckland University. In her application for the scholarship, she wrote: "In my own experience of seeking work overseas for a not-for-profit organisation, I identify with the motives and aspirations of Kathleen Hall herself. I chose to live, raise my three children and work amongst people of cultures other than my own. I now have a depth of understanding and appreciation of other cultures that few New Zealanders experience."

The 2001 scholar was Frances Waimate Ngamoki (better known as Wai), who used it to further her study of the care of diabetes in her Bay of Plenty community. Wai works as diabetes educator in Whakatane and holds regular clinics in Opotiki, Kawerau and various rural centres. She is an active volunteer in her community at both school and marae, and she is able to relate easily with people from all walks of life and backgrounds.

In 2000 the scholar was Shelley Blackwell, Paediatric Liaison Nurse with a Family Health Team, who completed her certificate studies in Community Child Health through Otago University, with assistance from the Kathleen Hall Centennial Scholarship.