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In this Issue….

ACPNG Education p 1

Simbai VTC p2

Parable of Talents p 3

Kerina College p 4

Adult Literacy p 5

Margaret’s School p 6

An Island Teacher p 7

ABC visit to PNG p 8

PNGCP is a UK-based mission agency dedicated to raising awareness and support for the Anglican Church in PNG

Education – Passport to a better life in PNG?

This enlarged Christmas Newsletter has ‘Education’ as its theme, sharing stories from some of the varied settings and services provided by the Anglican Church in Papua New Guinea (ACPNG).

The Churches together provide more than half the schools and colleges in PNG. ACPNG plays a very full part in this, responsible for Elementary, Community or Primary Schools in the many mountain, coastal or island communities where it has a permanent presence. It also runs long-established co-ed residential Secondary Schools at Agenehambo and Dogura; and Vocational Training Centres at Simbai and SagSag, the latter serving the South coast of New Guinea Islands. The Anglican Church also runs four training colleges: for lay-pastors at Tsendiap; Newton Theological College training priests; and, through the Anglican Health Service, residential training schools

for Nurses and for Community Health Workers.

Despite its importance to the development of PNG, the delivery of even basic education remains a complex and challenging priority for Government, the Churches, other involved agencies – and for parents, too. Government has a policy of ‘universal free education’ and is responsible for meeting the salaries of teachers and providing basic educational materials. In practice, teachers can go unpaid by Provincial authorities for lengthy periods: grants for basic teaching resources can be late or never paid; and families can be faced locally with payment of an annual ‘fee’ for their children’s education. This is most acutely felt in remote rural areas reliant on subsistence-farming, or with a limited cash

Papua New Guinea Church Partnership Christmas 2014 Newsletter

Learning can be Fun! – Home Economics students prepare bamboo

‘packed lunches’ for sale

Kimbe Elementary School class assembling under priest’s house

Grade 12 Graduation at Holy Name School, Dogura

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economy, services and infrastructure, where families can struggle to find fees and might reluctantly favour sending sons to school, rather than daughters who are likely to be lost to the community on marriage.

Unless from the area, many teachers are reluctant to serve in such communities, far from banks, shops, a more comfortable lifestyle - and their paymasters. There they can be faced with poor classroom provision, supplies and accommodation, limited electricity and communications, the uncertainty of regular payment and the expense of journeys to sort it out, and reliance on their food-garden amongst people and a culture different to their own. Sadly, as evidenced by recent overseas exploitation of liquid natural gas or new mineral extraction, trained teachers can easily be lost to the profession through the lure of regular, higher wages for basic labouring jobs.

Despite these challenges, limited resources and large classes (an average Primary 1 class contains over 40 children and a wide age-range), much good work happens because of dedicated staff. For individual pupils, learning can involve either tok ples (their local language) or tok pisin (PNG’s lingua franca of pidgin English) and then English in a curriculum that is PNG culture-based.

Although less than one in five PNG-nationals currently obtain paid employment, with the accelerating pace of economic development and social change there are surely growing opportunities ahead, particularly for those with academic, vocational and specialist qualifications. Whilst helping prepare young people for this emerging labour market, ACPNG is also concerned to help a higher proportion of young people in rural settings receive a good education and provide a chance for older men and women to become literate and numerate.

Simbai Vocational Training Centre

In a rural location high in the Schrader Mountains, and starting with Carpentry and Construction classes, the Vocational Training Centre was established by ACPNG in 1994 to provide promising young men from the area with practical skills to benefit their local communities. Over the years it has developed, firstly to also provide Home Economics for young women, then Agriculture with an income-generating rice-mill and portable saw-mill, then the inclusion of young women in the carpentry and construction classes.

Since registration with the Madang Provincial Authority, who now pay the seven teaching staff, and with a local Manager and Board of Governors, this Anglican facility has expanded further to provide Business Studies, Tourism & Hospitality and Mechanics in addition to the above courses. Young women are now involved in all of these courses to the extent that 12 women successfully graduated from the most recent Carpentry class. The Centre provides other workshops for all students, including: Gender; Violence; HIV & AIDS and STIs. It has a steadily growing track-record of getting young people into paid employment in nearby towns, and six from the Simbai area have gone on to university.

Mothers ready for Literacy Graduation at Simbai

Busy carpentry worshop in the early days

SVTC Graduation Ceremony

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Parable of the Talents – Simbai-style

At the May 2014 PNGCP Day Conference, Scottish mission volunteer, Susan Tonin, whose Human Resources work with ACPNG was featured in the 2013 Christmas Newsletter, shared her earlier very different experience working at Simbai Vocational Training Centre. She writes: “When first I went to Simbai as a Domestic Science teacher, I found I was also ‘Didi Meri’ (female Agriculture teacher) and teaching elementary Business Studies! I worked with 15 young women from Simbai and the surrounding villages. They worked so hard, despite the toughness of their lives, and always had time to laugh and appreciate what God had given them. Teaching with little equipment was a challenge, but it was the best experience I could have hoped for and those girls taught me so much. Land around the Centre, together with seeds I brought and these young women’s interest, made a ‘gardening-from-scratch’ project an obvious priority. Hard work, daily rain and abundant sunshine did the rest. Dressmaking was another core activity, once broken sewing-machines were repaired with the help of a local man. He trained two of the girls so well that we didn’t need him again. One now makes her living maintaining machines in surrounding villages. Patterns were made from newspapers. I was gifted materials in the coastal town of Madang and got them to Simbai by bartering seedlings with the Island Airways pilot for free freight. We made patchwork bags, skirts, shirts, shorts, blouses and school uniforms. Brightly coloured wool, gifted from the Scottish Borders, was made into bilums. Much was sold at the school gates, local market, Madang or Mt Hagen.

The ‘Good Eating’ project concentrated on healthy eating habits, using local vegetables to make soup and simple, nutritious dishes. Soup and bread were sold at the school gates. Four of the girls continue to provide regular Health Centre sessions for pregnant young mums on the importance of a healthy diet. Initially, budgeting was a big challenge for girls unused to handling money. This was mastered through the experience of keeping records of product sales. The acid-test came when, after six months, I gave them each 50 kina (about £12) of my own money to start their own income-generating projects. They were expected to utilise their learning, pay back the loans, investing any profit in the development of their projects. It proved a highly successful ‘risk’, clearly giving the girls a feeling of pride and self-worth, whilst helping them grow towards personal independence and self-sufficiency.”

Simbai Home Economics Class

Home Economics Students breaking out their new food-gardens

Sue with students modelling patchwork bags for sale

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Kerina Evangelists College – ACPNG’s Lay-training Institution

The choice of the remote rural community of Tsendiap to be the residential training location for catechists – lay pastors - from across ACPNG recognises the challenging life of service they and their wives are being prepared for back in their own local communities. These catechists have played an important role in ACPNG’s missionary work, either helping consolidate the opening-up work of the Melanesian Brothers in unreached rural communities or urban settlements, or complementing the work of local parish priests by working in Anglican outstations and chapels. Today, Tsendiap boasts an Anglican Health Centre, Primary School and Parish Church, with resident priest, in addition to the College. This largely self-sufficient community is still mainly reliant for access and export of local coffee on Mission Aviation Fellowship flights, as an alternative to a lengthy and arduous walk in or out. The area is prone to occasional droughts affecting the availability of adequate food and water. The College campus is an attractive setting, with houses for married and single students and the four staff (Principal, Chaplain, Lecturer and Bursar) and two classrooms. Present services, however, are rudimentary or non-existent. The solar-system needs repair and upgrading as flown-in kerosene for night-time study is prohibitively expensive. With uncertain water availability, rainwater-collection tanks are needed for the staff and student houses. After twenty-plus years’ use, the area used for food-gardens is worked out, now producing little but cassava (tapioca) and green vegetables, making the College reliant on costly freighted-in essentials like rice, flour and tinned fish. The College library is in a sorry state with no new books or materials received for some time. Despite all this, there is a remarkable spirit in the College amongst a dedicated staff and the uncomplaining way that students accept the disciplined and monotonous life-style and the shortage of food, water and social contacts. Fr Newton Ekoda, Lecturer at the College writes: “Currently, there are 18 students at the College, 15 married and three single. This year we have students from all five dioceses: Aipo Rongo (7); Popondota (5); NGI (4); and one each from Port Moresby and Dogura. Two students are Melanesian Brothers. The two-year programme includes Pastoral Care & Counselling, Evangelism and Religious Studies.

The wives also have classes each week, including Literacy, MU work, Prayer and Bible Study. Recently, Mothers Jessica Ingen and Juliet Kolai ran a week-long workshop on Gender and, separately, Sewing and donated three sewing-machines. School-age children attend the station’s David Hand Primary School. One of our students, a specialist in phonics, works with pre-school children at week-ends, and my wife, Daisy, leads the Sunday School class.” (Priested in November this year, Newton was Aipo Rongo’s Diocesan Youth Officer for many years, then Provincial Youth Coordinator, before ordination training at Newton College – Ed.)

Welcome to Kerina College Graduation

Families relax on campus at the end of Graduation Day

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Adult Literacy – a liberating experience for women

In many parts of PNG, with the marked exception of matrilineal tribal areas, women can all too easily have missed out on any formal education. This may have been due to a host of reasons: as a girl, being needed to help in the home or food-garden; boys being favoured when school fees were charged and money was scarce; the feeling that a girl was not worth investing in because she would move away upon marriage; etc.. Whatever the cause, in some of the remote rural communities, a majority of older women are illiterate and so can be handicapped in key aspects of their everyday life: support to their own children at school; handling money and marketing; reading health clinic notices and accessing other information. Within the Aipo Rongo Diocese, this was the situation in many of the rural parishes when, with Archbishop James Ayong’s encouragement, Aileen Gardham, wife of the then Aipo Rongo Diocesan Secretary (a long-stay PNGCP-supported mission volunteer) targeted the Simbai and Jimi Deaneries to establish an Adult Literacy Programme aimed primarily at such women. In 2000, once initial discussions had been successfully concluded with key local leaders, priests and Mothers Union (MU), the work began in earnest. Potential Literacy Tutors were identified, trained, equipped and supported to work, as volunteers, in communities where they were known and respected. Information about the Literacy classes was given out during church services There was an immediate response from women eager to grasp the chance to learn to read, write and become numerate. Despite the many practical challenges involved, not least the distances involved in supporting Tutors in this mountainous terrain, the initiative has proved highly successful, both numerically and individually. Constance, one of the early Literacy graduates, reflects,

“Learning to read and write has made a big difference for me. When selling my vegetables at market I can now use money and give change without asking for help. I know how important education is, all my children are at school and I can encourage and help them. I seem to know much more that is going on locally and am more involved in the church and MU. I felt proud of myself for learning this and feel more confident.” Now, over 500 women (and some men) have successfully graduated from these Tok Pisin (pidgin-English) Literacy classes in Aipo Rongo. Latterly, this MU-run programme has had additional funding through the AusAid-funded Church Partnership Programme, to use 27 tutors and assistants. There are also three regional coordinators because the programme is spreading to other parts of ACPNG. Many individual lives have been changed through this gift of literacy.

Training Workshop for new Literacy Tutors

Catechist teaching Literacy Class at Alvan

Literacy graduate Mary reads to her son

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The School that Margaret Built

John Rea writes, “I first got to know Margaret Fleming when, in her early nineties and with no close relatives, she decided that she wanted to put her modest savings to some good use before she died. At that time, I was leading a £10 million Appeal to establish Scotland’s first children’s hospice. Responding to a demand that I meet with her, I was treated to a very proper afternoon-tea and a rigorous interview by this feisty Glaswegian spinster in her flat. I am unsure whether the 70-year old chaperone was there for Margaret’s protection or mine! Whatever, Margaret subsequently funded the first specially-adapted people-carrier for the new children’s hospice. For me, this was the start of a lively friendship with this unusual woman, through to her death aged 99. She gave me a very tough time when I told her that Della and I were going out to be mission volunteers with ACPNG, “Why do you want to go to such a place when there is so much to be done in Scotland?” When I visited her on furlough two years later, it was clear our regular Newsletters had changed her understanding. I was faced with a barrage of insightful questions and a desire to help again. From the many options I was able to suggest, Margaret unhesitatingly chose to fund the replacement of a much-needed school building in New Guinea Islands. I had always been greatly impressed with the small Elementary School on the Anglican diocesan compound in Kimbe. There, three wonderful teachers showed what could be done despite two deteriorating ‘bush materials’ classrooms that leaked copiously every time it rained; a third class that met under the priest’s house; and scarce educational materials. A new building was needed to match the quality of teaching on offer. Simon Kamong, long-standing Diocesan Secretary and himself a skilled carpenter, reckoned that a permanent building with metal roof, giving three classrooms, a small teachers’

room and a storeroom could be created for just £6,000. When I visited six months later, the new building had just been completed, with the voluntary labour of young men from the local congregation, under Simon’s direction. They worked overnight during my stay to paint the exterior and, although it was holiday time, one of the class teachers organised a children’s ‘thank you’ event so I could take photos to show Margaret. Today, this Anglican Elementary School is the most popular in Kimbe, with three classes full to the rafters, now a fourth class meeting under the priest’s house, and Simon’s simple, low-cost classroom design has been ‘borrowed’ by two other denominations working in NGI. Proof-positive that a little money can go a long way in PNG, and Margaret had the joy of knowing how much a lasting difference her contribution had made whilst she was still alive.”

The original Elementary School at Kimbe

New Classroom Block – Simon on right, with painting squad behind

The smiles say it all – Thank You!

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An Island Posting

In the last Newsletter, former Archbishop James Ayong

described his life in retirement on the island of Kumbun. Through working visits to the island, my wife and I got to know and admire Helen Lamo, Senior Teacher at the island’s only Primary School. Her story is an excellent example of professional commitment to her own remote community – Ed.. “I was born into a teaching family, both my parents being Primary School teachers who met and trained at the old St Aidan’s College, near Dogura. As a small girl I travelled with my parents from one school to another before going to a Roman Catholic Secondary School in Madang Province. I went on to three years’ training as a teacher at Balob Teachers College, jointly run by the Anglican and Lutheran Churches, in Lae. After graduation, I taught in Simbai Primary School, then Kenainj Community School, both in the Highlands. I was later moved to another remote location, Aiome Primary School, where my parents were also teaching. Later still, I was transferred to the New Guinea Islands, firstly to SagSag Community School before finally being posted to St Boniface’s on Kumbun. Through these varied experiences, I learned to teach confidently and creatively in situations where educational materials were scarce and external inspections and development opportunities were absent. Instead, we learn to be innovative, using whatever we can lay our hands on, to substitute for proper materials. When seeking policy or professional guidance, it is frustrating to be ignored by Provincial Education Authority staff who stay in their offices rather than providing in-service training or workshops for us, as used to happen. Even circulars and new directives often aren’t sent to remote schools.

I am paid by the Provincial Education Authority, with my salary paid direct into my bank account in Kimbe**. Periodically, my husband travels to Kimbe to get whatever we need from the stores there and to collect mail for us and the other islanders. Elementary Schools based on three different islands feed into St Boniface’s which, since 2012, has expanded to

teach seven different Grades with 35 in each class. Because of this growth, we now occupy a major part of the parish grounds and have four double classrooms, each with store-room and office, and a separate Teachers’ Tea-Room. Depending on their abilities, students either go on to secondary schooling or vocational training centre elsewhere in NGI, or back to their villages to work the land, fish or other local outdoor activities. My free time is spent working in our food garden, collecting firewood and often going with my husband to other islands to feed pigs and collect shells. Teachers in Kumbun are respected in the community and so people help with our gardening activities, and with cleaning days around the school buildings and teachers’ houses. This local appreciation and support is so encouraging to us.

Kumbun Island Village

Kumbun Schoolgirls

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I am an Anglican Christian and having received much from the Church Agency Schools, I feel I owe so much to the Church. Having joined the teaching fleet within the Anglican Education Division after graduation, I made up my mind to strengthen the work of education in my village and along the South coast of West New Britain. In fulfilling my aim, I also hope to encourage young girls, boys too, to consider becoming teachers and helping other young people learn.” (** At the time of writing, I learned from Bishop James that Mrs Lamo had not been paid for four years and had just had to travel five hours to the Provincial capital, Kimbe, to try to resolve this. She also wrote movingly of local concerns about the effects of Asian logging on the islands’ beautiful forests, seemingly allowed by government greed and indifference, and of the devastating impact on sea-life and traditional shell-collecting of the new, large-scale fishing activities of outsiders. – Ed.)

If you want to send or share a .PDF copy of this Newsletter, or the previous three editions, they can be found on-line at ISSUU-Papua New Guinea Church Partnership

Papua New Guinea Church Partnership Registered Charity Number 249446

PNGCP, St Andrew’s House, 16 Tavistock Crescent, London W11 1AP Email: pngcpoffice@gmail.com Tel: 0207 313 3918

Waiting for afternoon school to start

HIV awareness at Holy Name School

Rosita was one happy Literacy graduate

Archbishop of Canterbury and Caroline Welby with

ACPNG Bishops, Bishop Nigel Stock and Sue

Ramsden in Port Moresby in August 2014. Archbishop Justin Welby was on a whistle-stop tour to

meet the Primates of the Philippines, Melanesia,

PNG, Australia and New Zealand

With grateful thanks to the following for their contributions and help in producing this Newsletter: Helen Lamo; Retired-Bishop James Ayong; Fr Newton Ekoda; Susan Tonin; Martin & Aileen Gardham; Jessica Ingen; Mercinta Maras; +Peter & Sue Ramsden; Della & Jasper Rea, and to the Scottish Episcopal Church for continuing Newsletter sponsorship. Any comments, queries or ideas welcome to the Editor, John Rea, at PNGCP