1930 - 1945: PIONEERING TECHNICAL 
                                    ASSISTANCE

 I. Start by improving the farming
II. Deal properly with the question of health
III. Improve the home practices
IV Include Recreation
V Attack the problem of illiteracy
VI Operate a total program
VII Organize farm schools with caution
VIII Make the Rural school Rural
IX Apply the latest in science
X Develop Capable Leaders
XI Make Haste slowly

1930. Harold B. Allen, Table of contents from Rural Reconstruction in Action (1953)

In 1929/30 Near East Relief - anticipating a path many agencies would take only after World War II - saw an opportunity to move beyond provision of relief services. Renamed the Near East Foundation, the organization initiated a program of teaching rural people the skills required to permanently improve their lives. Novel at the time, this strategy was based not only on the fifteen years of experience Near East Relief had with refugee populations, but also on a thorough investigation of rural conditions in the Near East.


Poultry school, Albania, 1934

To guide the transition from relief to development, NER commissioned a comprehensive study, which was published as The Near East and the American philanthropy. This report recommended the use of well-trained technicians to develop programs of rural community improvement that would, as quickly as possible, become the responsibility of the communities. Motivated by the guiding principles of "Helping People to Help Themselves," NEF specialists in agriculture and health began to work with farming communities in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Syria/Lebanon to introduce new corps and agricultural practices; provide clean water, better sanitation, and malaria control; and to help people learn to read and write. Each of these programs was shaped by the need of the community involved.

Palestinian schoolteacher, trained by NEF, instructs his pupils in planting a demonstration garden, 1934

NEF Nurse, , the director of the Syrian health service, receives her young patients at a children's clinic, 1933


Iranians spraying insecticide to eliminate malaria, 1946 Planting olive trees in Jordan, 1960's

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