Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Half of PNG child sex abuse victims are kids

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

THE FAMILY SUPPORT CENTRE at the Angau Memorial General Hospital in Papua New Guinea reports that more than half the victims of sexual violence and abuse that they see are children.

The officer in-charge of the facility, Anastasia Wakon, says in the first four months of this year, they have attended to more than 100 cases of violence and sexual abuse where the victims are children.

She told a gathering in Lae protesting against violence towards women and children that the national government must take responsibility and pass stricter laws to deter people from committing these crimes.

The Lae event was one of several Hauskrai (grieving ceremonies) held throughout PNG last week.

Australian woman dies from drug resistant TB

NATHAN PAULL | AAP

A TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER WOMAN has died from an apparent drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, becoming the first Australian in several years to succumb to the disease.

Queensland's chief health officer Jeanette Young yesterday confirmed the 20-year-old's death on 25 April.

Dr Young says it is yet to be determined how the woman contracted the illness but she frequently visited Papua New Guinea which has one of the world's highest incident rates.

She says it is likely her particular infection became resistant to medication because she probably had a lapse in treatment rather than contracting a super-strain from somebody else.

Mysterious disease with the strange-sounding name

PAUL OATES

WITH A NAME LIKE CHIKUNGUNYA, surely most people would know it when they come across it? Yet that’s the problem. Not many people have ever heard about it or know what it is.

The name comes from an African language from Tanzania called ‘Makonde’. It means ‘that which bends up’ and describes what happens physically when people contract this particular disease, sometimes referred to as ‘Chicken Malaria’ or 'Tiger Malaria’.

The limbs of the sufferers of this disease are so affected with severe arthritic joint pains that their limbs actually contort at odd angles.

In addition to severe arthritic pain, the other reported symptoms that indicate someone has contracted Chikungunya are high fever, rashes that break out over areas of the body, swelling of the legs, headaches and possible sensitivity to light.

Graduates aim to improve Bougainville health services

ISHMAEL PALIPAL

POST CONFLICT BOUGAINVILLE NEEDS more workers to improve health services for a growing population. Health services on the island were shattered during the 10-year civil war and are currently in a desperate need.

A trio of graduating Bougainville female students told me: “We are looking forward to helping to develop our region by putting our skills in improving our health services back in Bougainville.”

The trio along with other Bougainvillean students graduated this year in different health fields with the aim to help develop the health service infrastructure in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

Pacific is beset by gender violence, but why?

NICOLE GEORGE | Women’s Agenda

ALLEGATIONS OF SORCERY-RELATED ABUSE in Papua New Guinea have had increased prominence recently.

They involve the alleged torture of six women and one man with hot irons as part of an Easter “sacrifice” in the Southern Highlands, as well as reports of the public beheading of a woman accused of sorcery in Bougainville.

These come in the wake of the violent death of a young Mt Hagen woman in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, which became the subject of international media attention in early February.

Kepari Leniata, a 20 year old mother of an eight month old baby, was tortured and eventually burnt alive before a crowd of onlookers. The Australian’s Rowan Callick described Leniata’s murder as a product of PNG’s failed education system and its programs of economic development.

Extensively drug-resistant TB hovers at Australia’s door

TONY KIRBY | Medical Journal of Australia

IT WAS HOPED that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) might never arrive on Australia’s shores. But new cases raise the spectre of death for patients, transmission to others and large costs for Australian taxpayers.

Papua New Guinea national Catherina Abraham, aged 20 years, “made it” to Australia and hit the headlines in October 2012 because she had been diagnosed with XDR-TB.

After almost a year in an isolation ward at Cairns Base Hospital, she died on 8 March 2013. Her treatment cost Queensland Health about $500,000 and would have cost $1 million had she lived to complete it.

Now another PNG national has been diagnosed with XDR-TB in Australia. In the preceding 8 years, only two other XDR-TB cases were recorded in Australia.

Bush doctor: Behind the Dr Barry Kirby story

JO CHANDLER

IT WAS MY LABOUR OF LOVE, two years of dreaming and plotting to track down Dr Barry Kirby, and pretty nail-biting in the end, for me as a new freelancer, as to whether his story would ever actually find a publisher.

I’d like to pick up a couple of important themes identified in the feedback from PNG Attitude readers.

First, the issue of village birth attendants is a really interesting and live debate in the medical/development sphere.

The question is this: Do you recognise the reality that many isolated and poor communities will never get a functional health service, therefore invest in educating and equipping village birth attendants on the basis that something is better than nothing?

Ex-builder Dr Barry Kirby's labour of love in PNG

JO CHANDLER | The Australian

IT WAS MIDNIGHT and Barry Kirby had been at the wheel for almost seven hours, nudging his 4WD 200km down a goat-track of bog, fog and yawning ravines in some of Papua New Guinea's most inhospitable back country, when he experienced his epiphany.

Later, friends would gently suggest he was overthinking a garden-variety midlife crisis. He was a prime candidate - 40, a loner, a searcher; a carpenter by trade and adventurer by nature, nearing the end of a defining four-year posting in a lost corner of PNG.

"People would talk about 'change of life' and other stupid things," says Kirby, ever the plain-spoken Australian tradie. "But I kept getting these messages."

That night on the road in 1990 he was hauling building materials back to the village of Menyamya, where he'd lived for the past four years, when his headlights fell on what looked like a hessian sack.

Down the Fly River, this time with a paddle

MARTYN NAMORONG | The Namorong Report

ON TUESDAY I ARRIVED in Port Moresby after a six month stint at the Ok Tedi copper-gold mine in the Star Mountains of western Papua New Guinea.

The experience was overwhelmingly positive and gave me many insights into the political economy of the resources sector in PNG and Western Province in particular.

Towards the end of last year, I observed and participated in discussions that led to 156 communities signing up to extend the mine life at Ok Tedi beyond 2015.

What stunned me about the discussions was the amount of scientific information given to the village leaders. It was as if Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) had put itself on trial and gave the leaders evidence against itself.

Sorcery & witchcraft conference to be held in Canberra

Sorcery & Witchcraft-Related Killings in Melanesia: Culture, Law & Human Rights Perspectives Conference, 5–7 June 2013, University House, Australian National University, Canberra

SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT BELIEFS and practices exist in many communities throughout the world, and are particularly associated with social stress and dislocation.

Although some aspects of sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices are, it is argued, functional or even beneficial for communities and individuals (e.g. in maintaining social norms) they can also lead to a range of negative consequences.

These include brutal attacks and even killings of alleged practitioners, civil unrest and warfare, criminal activity, and the fostering of a pervasive culture of insecurity, fear and envy in the context of uneven economic development.

Very little of the voluminous, largely anthropological, literature on sorcery and witchcraft considers how these negative consequences can be addressed in policy and practical terms.

Is TB Australia's problem? Maybe not long from now

SUSAN MERRELL

TODAY, SUNDAY 24 MARCH, is World Tuberculosis Day. In Australia, tuberculosis (TB) has largely been eradicated and is at a negligible incidence of six cases for every 100,000 of population.

So, apart from humanitarian considerations for countries less fortunate, why should TB concern Australia?

It's said that one can walk from Australia to Papua New Guinea at low tide, and PNG has a staggeringly high incidence of 346 TB cases per 100,000, with numbers rising. (There has been a 42% increase in the last decade.)

Furthermore, 33% of new and retreatment cases in PNG are of the heinous drug-resistant variety.

So will PNGs problem become Australia's? Evidence suggests that it will.

World Vision PNG pushes fight against tuberculosis

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

WORLD VISION SAYS EVERYONE in Papua New Guinea can do more to limit the spread of tuberculosis.

PNG country leader, Curt von Boguslawski (pictured), says World TB Day events will be held around PNG this weekend and people need to realise the disease is treatable and the treatment is free.

He says there will be events in Port Moresby, Madang, Morobe and Goroka as the National TB Program now covers all provinces.

Mr von Boguslawski says a persistent cough lasting more than three weeks is a key symptom of the infectious respiratory illness.

Sexual violence in Lae: impunity and resistance

STEPHEN HOWES & KAMALINI LOKUGE | Development Policy Blog

LAE, ON PAPUA NEW GUINEA’s northern coast, is the country’s second city and industrial hub. It is also the capital of PNG’s largest province, Morobe.

Its main government hospital, the Angau Hospital, is home to PNG’s most successful Family Support Centre (FSC), which provides medical support and psychosocial care to survivors of family and sexual violence.

Supported by Medecins san Frontieres (MSF) since 2008, in the last five years the FSC has provided care to over 11,500 patients.

Many of those cases involve women being beaten or knifed. But many are also cases of sexual violence. In 2010, the Centre attended to 530 survivors of sexual violence. Of these, 338 were adults (above 16) and the other 192 were children. Of the 338 adult cases, 322 were cases of rape. Of the 192 child cases, 149 were of rape.

These are, by any standards, depressingly high levels of reported sexual violence and rape. But our interest is in how many of these cases make it through the legal system and result in convictions.

Condition critical: PNG health training is in the ICU

PAULUS RIPA

THE CURRENT STATE of health personnel training in Papua New Guinea is appalling.

We have known for at least a decade that we would be running into a shortage of health workers (see recent article in PNG Attitude here).

Millions of kina have been spent in the last five years or more on meetings and workshops by the Health Department on this issue, and there is still no official directive.

The minister has expressed concern and announced recently that a national policy will be released soon.

The report in PNG Attitude had at least one misleading comment. We are led to believe that it has only been due to the release of Australian funding that midwives will be graduating this year. This is a blatant untruth.

PNG cervical cancer rates are among world’s highest

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

THE HEAD OF SCIENCE at Papua New Guinea’s Institute of Medical Research, Andrew Vallely, says cervical cancer kills 1,500 women a year, more than any other cancer and a rate among the highest in the world.

He says pap smear screening has worked very well in urban areas over the last decade but is not as successful in rural parts of the country where the majority of women live.

Dr Vallely says a simultaneous screening and treatment early intervention program being trialled in the Highlands is likely to be rolled out across PNG.

“I think we are getting to the stage where we’ll soon have the data that can help policy makers develop definitive policy in these areas both for primary prevention, which is vaccination, and also secondary prevention, screening and early treatment,” he said.

Researchers are also looking at the incidence in the community of the cervical cancer-causing HPV virus.

Struggle as health workers move past retirement age

IRIN NEWS & ANALYSIS

ALTHOUGH IT IS RICH in natural resources, Papua New Guinea’s health staffing levels are comparable to the world’s poorest countries due to a rapidly retiring workforce and lack of qualified replacements.

“If we do not do anything about our ageing workforce quickly, the health system may collapse,” former health minister Jamie Maxton Graham told parliament in 2012.

Despite repeated warnings of the shortage since 2002, the country faces what the government calls a “drastic” health worker shortage. A World Bank report has predicted a large decline in nurses and midwives, the backbone of rural service delivery, by up to half.

Graduate returns home to improve rural health

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

PAUL DISIN WAS BORN in Madang in 1987 from mixed Bougainville and Madang parentage. In 1989, even as Bougainville sank into civil war, he moved with his family to Siwai in south Bougainville, where his dad comes from.

Since then Paul has never met his matrilineal relatives of Madang, but this does not affect him. He says Bougainville is where he belongs.

On 3 March, Paul graduated from Divine Word University. He’s happy and proud to have made it this far after all the hardship experienced in his education back in Bougainville.

“I am very happy,” he told me in the dormitory we share along with other undergraduates from south Bougainville, “and looking forward to repaying my parents for the hard times they had caring for me. I also want to contribute to the development and peace-building process on my island.”

We implore you, Hon Byron Chan, Mining Minister....

NANCY SULLIVAN

I WORK IN THE KARAWARI region of the East Sepik where, for the past seven years, I have been leading a group of Papua New Guinean ethnographers and archaeologists in recording and conserving an enormous cave art system.

It riddles the northern escarpment of Mt MacGregor as it falls down the headwaters of the Arafundi and Karawari Rivers.

Some of the people we work with are amongst the last nomadic hunter gatherers in PNG, and they continue to live in these caves with stencils and images that date back, we believe, 20,000 years.

As yet we haven’t had the expertise to confirm their age, but they are very similar to caves found in Borneo and Western Australia which have been dated to that era.

Out of anguish born an invincible foundation of wonder

FRANCIS NII | Supported by the South Pacific Strategic Solutions Writing Fellowship

THE YOUNG MAN WATCHED at his mother’s hospital bedside as she succumbed to the nefarious disease tuberculosis before his eyes.

The woman that bore him, nurtured him and worked so hard as he grew up and was educated to be able to live an affluent modern lifestyle had died without fully realising the benefits of all she had invested in him.

The man was devastated. He was mentally torn to shreds. Worst of all, his mother had died of a disease that, according to medical science, is curable. Why?

The young man pondered. As he stood there, anguished and perplexed, his tearful eyes caught sight of many other souls, young and old, lying motionless in their beds waiting for their time to come or recuperation.

His heart went out to them. And he promised, ‘I will never leave this hospital’.

Merelyn Aruke: celebrating one of many inspiring women

PETER  MACDONALD

YESTERDAY WAS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY and, as president of Australian Doctors International, I want to highlight our team member and eye nurse Merelyn Aruke, a positive and enthusiastic woman who works tirelessly on patrols, never turning away a single patient.

We applaud the positive impact being made by exceptional women just like her throughout Papua New Guinea, especially in the areas of health, legal justice and violence against women.

Merelyn grew up in New Ireland and is the mother of three children. ADI’s integrated rural health patrols have taken her to places she’s never been to before.

She is a registered nurse who completed a Certificate of Eye Care at Divine Word University with the support of the Fred Hollows Foundation.

O’Neill ‘silent’ over Solwara deep sea mining risks

Pacific Media Centre | Deep Sea Mining Campaign

AN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY group has accused prime minister PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill of “falling silent” on the controversial Solwara 1 deep sea mining venture planned off the coast of Madang.

“Why has our prime minister fallen silent on this core issue?” asked Wence Magun, national coordinator for the Madang-based Mas Kagin Tapani and also a steering committee member of the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) Campaign.

The campaign wrote to O’Neill last December expressing environmental concerns about the Solwara 1 mine and asked for documents relating to the approvals process of Nautilus Minerals Solwara 1 deep sea mine be made publicly available.

The campaign is still awaiting a response.

In the Simbu, conquering the curse of osteomyelitis

FRANCIS NII | Supported by the South Pacific Strategic Solutions Writing Fellowship

A NEW LEASE OF HEALTHY and vibrant life after many years of living in pain and confinement is every patient’s dream.

Osteomyelitis, a painful bone-decaying condition that has afflicted many young children, sometimes even causing permanent disability, will soon be a scourge of the past.

The surgical doctors at Sir Joseph Nombri Memorial Hospital in Kundiawa, Simbu Province were baffled when, after many years of treating osteomyelitis patients with common drugs like amoxicillin, flucloxacilin and chloramphenical, there was very little or no improvement in the condition of the patients, most of whom were children under the age of 14.

This lack of success prompted the doctors to undertake research into bacteriology and the sensitivity of the antibiotics administered to find out why there was no effect.

The research jointly carried out by doctors led by senior surgeon Dr Damien Hasola in collaboration with the PNG Institute of Medical Research is sponsored by the Simbu Children Foundation. It started at the beginning of July 2012 and continues.

The fight for land rages in Papua New Guinea

CHRISTINA HILL | Oxfam Mining Advocacy Coordinator

I have just returned from Papua New Guinea where the struggle for control of the country’s natural resources is raging.

Communities are quite literally fighting for their lands, environment, livelihoods and culture – all of these are at risk from logging, palm oil and other so-called developments.

Land is life, as they say in PNG. Yet those who try to defend their land are often intimidated and harassed by the companies who want the land and the logs.

I spent a week working with Oxfam partners learning about community rights to decide what happens on their land, and about how Oxfam partners are supporting communities to understand and defend their rights.

We focused on the right to ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC). The right to FPIC is articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in other human rights instruments.

FPIC represents the highest standard possible for the involvement of communities in decision-making about large scale projects including logging, palm oil and mining.

FPIC requires that communities must be adequately informed about large projects in a timely manner and given the opportunity to approve, or reject, projects before operations begin. This includes participation in setting the terms and conditions that address the economic, social and environmental impacts of the project.

What became clear during our conversations that week was how important human rights – and human rights language – is. The right to FPIC is not an abstract concept, it is being used by communities to prevent being exploited.

As one of our partners who lives in a community directly impacted by logging said to me, “I have the right to decide what happens to my land because the law tells me so.”

When communities understand their right to FPIC they stand together and demand their voices are heard. I learned that FPIC really does empower local communities to make decisions about the use of their land so that their interests and rights are protected.

FPIC ensures that customary land rights and traditions are respected by project developers  Communities are using FPIC to protect their livelihoods and local environment because for many Papua New Guineans a sustainable livelihood is only possible if natural resources are used sustainably.

FPIC is not just about stopping large projects. FPIC can also be used to ensure that women and men benefit from these projects. For example, we talked about how communities can benefit from project-related infrastructure and services, and small business opportunities, but only when communities are involved in decision making.

Our week together finished with a picnic lunch at the local beach. To get there we drove through mangrove forests – which are important fish breeding grounds – to arrive at beautiful Wom Beach.

This was a fitting reminder to us all of the importance of natural resources for the people of PNG.

Voyage of hope: Pacific conservation, culture & climate

MANUAI MATAWAI | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

I RECENTLY RETURNED with my crew from a 12 week canoe voyage between the islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomons.

On the way we covered over 5,000 kilometres and visited 21 island communities.

We shared stories and documented experiences in conservation, culture and how to deal with climate change. We were warmly welcomed everywhere, from New Ireland to Honiara.

The entire crew and I are of the Titan people. We come from villages on the islands of Pere, Mbuke and Baluan in the province of Manus, the largest of the Admiralty Islands, off the north coast of Papua New Guinea.

All our communities are involved in conservation, and both Mbuke and Pere have successful protected areas in place as part of local development and natural resource management strategies.

The Titan people are of a seafaring and island culture and we pride ourselves on our sailing, boat-building and navigation skills. I learned these skills from my father, a locally famous canoe-master.

I led my first voyage five years ago, from Manus across the Bismarck Sea to Madang, and from there across to our neighbours in West Papua.

I began building my own voyaging canoe two years ago, with a mission to share our experiences in Manus with other communities in PNG, Melanesia and the Pacific.

I named the boat Climate Challenger. Our current voyage was the culmination of a lot of planning and effort, but it was a resounding success.

The story of our voyage, and a map of the route, can be found here.

Among other roles, I am on the management committee of the Pere marine area. Established just a few years ago, the evolution of our conservation area has been challenging and exciting. We now have very effective protection in place, and the benefits to our community are numerous.

It was not an easy task. It took time and patience to win over the community, in addition to a lot of trial and error.

External support and back-up, both technical and financial, has been very important.

We have also been able to network in and around Manus, and we have worked with other communities and the provincial government to expand a network of protected areas across the islands.

Our planning efforts can be seen in this video clip.

The connectivity of local efforts can make a really big difference, especially as more development is planned for Manus and as the effects of climate change affect us more and more – particularly sea-level rise, which causes flooding and coastal erosion - and periods of warmer seas, which causes loss of coral, altered fish migration routes and unpredictable weather.

Everywhere on our voyage, we came across island communities facing similar challenges, particularly with erosion, flooding, loss of mangroves and shoreline vegetation and the depletion of coastal resources and local fisheries.

Australian aid making an impact on TB scourge

AusAID

THE FIGHT AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province is making progress as a new TB ward, funded by AusAID, also takes shape.

The new 22-bed TB ward at Daru General Hospital is part of a $31 million package of support Australia is providing to help the government of PNG improve health services in one of its poorest provinces.

There will be six isolation rooms to quarantine patients in the infectious stage of TB so they do not pass the disease on to others, with a further 16 bed inpatient ward for TB patients in the convalescent stage.

The design of the ward has been assessed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as complying with international infection control standards.

The ward is one of a range of measures AusAID is supporting to help PNG fight the disease. Since implementing the support, mortality rates for drug-resistant TB in Western Province dramatically reduced from 25% to 5% last year. Detection of the disease rose by 30%.

Dr Geoff Clark, AusAID’s program director for health and HIV in Port Moresby, said treatment for TB can take from 6 to 24 months.

"When you look at the amount of time it takes for people to recover, it’s clear that any approach that is going to work must branch out into the communities where people live," Dr Clark said.

"The specialist TB facilities at Daru are a critical element of AusAID’s broader package of support."

Barrick has ‘done its best’ on human rights in PNG

EDITORIAL | The Globe and Mail

CHANGE HASN’T HAPPENED QUICKLY enough in the global mining sector, despite prodding from advocacy groups concerned about environmental sustainability and human rights abuses.

But when a mining company responds to pressure and makes changes for the better, that should be acknowledged, not dismissed as an empty public relations gesture.

Recent criticism by Mining Watch of Barrick Gold’s initiative to assist the women who were raped by local employees of its mine in Papua New Guinea is short-sighted.

It has accused the company of “rushing” the women through the claims process, and of forcing them to sign away their legal rights.

That is stretching the truth. In fact, Barrick, the world’s largest gold-mining company, has done its best to clean up the mess at the Porgera gold mine.

Since 2011, it has spent 18 months consulting with human-rights advocates and developed an opt-in program of remediation for the victims, offering them counselling, access to micro-credit and medical care.

The program is administered by an independent team, including the former chief magistrate of PNG.

The women are free to pursue action against any individuals involved but once they settle the grievance procedure with the company, they cannot make further legal claims against it. This seems fair.

There is no denying that the Toronto-based corporation should have acted before the allegations of gang rapes became public in a 2011 Human Rights Watch report. That is regrettable.

However, Barrick has since responded “with vigour,” to use the words of Human Rights Watch. It launched a major internal investigation, facilitated a criminal investigation by the local police and dismissed the employees who were charged.

Sexual violence against women remains a serious problem in PNG, due in part to the country’s patriarchal culture. In the Porgera district, many women have experienced trauma and violence. This deeply rooted problem will not be resolved overnight.

Mining Watch, a non-profit advocacy group, is right to continue to monitor this issue in PNG and in other countries where governance is weak and corruption a problem.

But it should also be prepared to acknowledge change, and to chart the continuing evolution of the mining sector.

Barrick Gold's offer to rape victims slammed by NGOs

ROB ANNANDALE | The Tyee Newsletter / British Columbia, Canada

BARRICK GOLD, THE WORLD'S LARGEST gold mining company, has come under fire for attaching strings to a "remediation framework" offered to women raped by employees of its Papua New Guinea mine.

Following allegations of a series of gang rapes at its Porgera mine, Barrick devised a strategy the company says will help fulfill its promise to the surrounding communities: "We will uphold your rights and we will protect your dignity."

But a group of NGOs from Canada, the US and the UK says that the resulting document, far from protecting rape victims, requires them to waive their rights.

The framework document stipulates that in exchange for remedies such as access to counselling and micro-credit, "the claimant agrees that she will not pursue or participate in any legal action against [Porgera Joint Venture], PRFA [Porgera Remediation Framework Association Inc] or Barrick in or outside of [Papua New Guinea].

PRFA and Barrick will be able to rely on the agreement as a bar to any legal proceedings which may be brought by the claimant in breach of the agreement."

MiningWatch Canada's Catherine Coumans said the NGOs "do not believe women should have to sign away rights to possible future legal action in order to access the types of remedy Barrick is offering these victims of rape and gang rape."

While some of the alleged rapists were company employees, others were members of the police assigned to provide additional mine security.

But the NGOs say the material support Barrick provided to these police officers blurred the line between employees and non-employees, and they want the company to assist women raped by either category of security forces.

"We are also concerned that Barrick is not offering remedy to those women who have been raped and gang raped by members of police mobile squads who are being housed, fed and supported by PJV on PJV property," according to Rights & Accountability in Development's Tricia Feeney.

Photographer documents atrocities against PNG women

SVETLANA BACHEVANOVA | Women News Network

PAPUA NEW GUINEA suffers under a cloak of violence against women that still runs unabated, especially for those who live at the bottom of society with little legal recourse or protection.

A new and alarming trend in some assaults has been carefully documented by award winning photojournalist Vlad Sokhin, who exposes an ancient form of violence against women in the region.

“Women told me their stories; many of which just shocked me,” said Sokhin, the founder and publisher of Fotoevidence, an acclaimed online archive that also hosts The Fotoevidence Book Award.

Through the award, Fotoevidence recognises each year, “a documentary photographer whose project demonstrates courage and commitment in addressing a violation of human rights, a significant injustice or an assault on human dignity.”

Growing up as a Russian/Portuguese photographer, Sokhin currently lives in Sydney. In March 2012 he was recognised as the winner of the 2012 FotoEvidence Book Award.

In his in-depth documentation of social injustice against women, Sokhin has not shied away from an honest and at times hard look at violent acts against women in PNG.

These women have been on the receiving end of a system where 80% of all violence against women is unpunished.

“If you dig deep beneath the pain of Sokhin’s images you can find compassion and a rising sense of outrage in the desperate needs for protection of all women,” says WNN – Women News Network founder and editor-at-large Lys Anzia.

Sokhin’s project Crying Meri was selected for a screening at Visa Pour L’Image 2012 in Perpignan, France. His photos have also been displayed by a United Nations educational campaign in Papua New Guinea, addressing the issue of violence against women.

Photo:

Hellen Alphons, 38, walks with a rudimentary crutch outside her home. She lost her leg in 2005 in a fight with her drunken husband, Alai Kawa, when he chopped her right leg with a bushknife in front of their young children.

Kawa was arrested but, after treatment, Hellen left her home fearing her husband's release. When she returned home in 2010 she learned that her husband had died in prison.

Nowadays she lives together with Alai’s sister. Today they both run a small shop in Kundiawa in Simbu Province. Image: Vlad Sokhin

Scourge of cancer in PNG made worse by late diagnosis

FRANCIS NII | Supported by the South Pacific Strategic Solutions Writing Fellowship

IN MY CATCH-UP READING of stories in PNG Attitude after being debilitated for more than a month, I came across the heart-moving story about the battle against cancer of our wonderful friend and mentor of PNG writers, Barbara Short.

This is a remarkable story of faith and courage. Barbara is a champion. God bless all her beautiful guardian angels. From now on I will share Barbara's story of boldness, faith and miracles to encourage people to be prayerful and courageous in their battle against the morass.

For the last 10 years, I have lived and interacted with all kinds of cancer patients and I know very well the experiences that they go through.

I live in Ward 2 of the Dr Jan Jaworski Wing Two at Sir Joseph  Nombri Memorial  Hospital in Kundiawa and this is where cancer patients live, are operated on and treated with chemotherapy.

Every year new cancer patients come in; the hospital receiving an average of two patients a month. I interact with them almost every day and I share the pain, trauma and depression brought on by this terrible illness.

One thing I know to be the worst enemy of cancer patients is self defeat: feelings of hopelessness and surrender. Once they are told by the doctors that they have cancer, they take it as a death sentence and are mentally devastated. Their spirit departs from them.

As a result, subsequent treatments like operations and chemotherapy don’t seem to help much. They get weak and debilitated and pass on early.

A counselling program based on God’s word was started several years ago by Jean Kupo, a Christian nurse who was in-charge of the ward. It was very helpful.

From time to time, I joined her and over a soup of noodles, garlic and onion, we would chat with the patients one at a time or in group. Sometimes Jean would play the guitar and we would sing hymns and forget about the cancer and its pain.

In 2006, Jean and I organised a decent burial for a mouth cancer patient, Kaupa Kali, a single male late in his 50s from Salt Nomane.

His relatives had abandoned him when he was diagnosed with cancer. They never visited him in the hospital. Jean used to provide him with small personal items like soap and toilet tissue.

The evening of the night that he passed on, he called us over and said; “I am ready to go home. Don’t send this old house back to Salt Nomane. You know my people rejected it. Dump it somewhere in Kundiawa”.

We felt very sorry for him and assured him that all was going to be fine.

To honour his wish, Jean and I got the police coroner’s approval to bury Kaupa at Ega  Lutheran Cemetery in Kundiawa.

Jean organised some boys from her village at Yuwai to dig the grave. I organised the hospital workshop, just a few metres away from the ward, to construct a coffin. Then Jean washed and dressed him. Finally we laid Kaupa to rest at Ega.

The evening after the burial, we held a small feast of lamb flaps, bananas, sweet potato and vegetables with other patients in the ward in what we called rausim haus krai.

It was sad but fun too. To this day, none of Kaupa’s relatives have had the courtesy to say thank you to us. We didn’t mind. We did what we did on humanitarian grounds.

Concern over unsafe abortions in Papua New Guinea

IRIN News | Health & Medicine

HEALTH EXPERTS ARE CONCERNED about the number of unsafe abortions taking place in Papua New Guinea.

“Nobody knows the actual numbers, but it’s clear the number of school-age girls [having unsafe abortions] is unacceptably high,” said Lisa Vallely, head of the maternal and child health section of the PNG Institute of Medical Research.

“These are the figures at the hospital level only. We still don’t know what is happening outside in the community,” she said.

A six-month study headed by Ms Vallely looked at all abortions in the Goroka Hospital. Of 120 reported miscarriages admitted to the hospital over the period, 23% were induced abortions, with more than half taking place 12-26 weeks into pregnancy.

Most were young girls, attending school or higher education, and most of these induced abortions took place using prescription-only tablets purchased through healthcare workers or at a pharmacy.

Others reported using traditional herbs and physical means, including strenuous exercise, inserting a stick into the vagina and tying a rope around the abdomen.

Many women resorted to abortions for fear of shaming their family, so they can continue their education or because they are breastfeeding another child, the study found.

A recent study of the situation in Goroka highlighted sepsis due to unsafe abortion as a leading cause of maternal mortality.

Abortion is illegal in PNG unless two doctors agree a woman’s life may be at risk. However, the practice of induced abortions is widely practiced, health workers say.

World agrees first global treaty to curb mercury pollution

Russian Television | Additional commentary by Axel Sturm

A CONVENTION SIGNED IN GENEVA has legally bound over 140 countries to new laws as part of an attempt to prevent the spread of deadly mercury pollution.

Environmental mercury levels have been rising, and anticipated further increases have motivated UN delegates in Geneva to reach a consensus on the solution.

 Mercury can cause a range of neurological and health problems and is potentially fatal in large doses.

The legally binding rules, known as the Minimata Convention, was established on Saturday morning. The UN approval of the treaty followed recently published data which demonstrated an alarming rise in levels of the highly toxic metal, especially in developing states.

‘Minimata’ is the Japanese name for a neurological disorder that arises from severe mercury poisoning, symptoms of which can include numbness in the extremities, ataxia, damage to speech, sound and sight, paralysis and death.

Once released into the environment, mercury can become more concentrated as it moves up the food chain. It can bio-accumulate in fish, which humans then consume.

The UN said a growth in small-scale mining and coal-burning were the primary reasons for the rise in mercury emissions.

Axel Sturm (President, European Shareholders of Bougainville Copper) comments:

Alluvial gold is produced and sold in large quantities in Bougainville. As I am informed, most people who work with mercury don’t even know how dangerous it is.

Recently the Autonomous Bougainville Government discussed this problem and I strongly believe it is up to us to inform the people of Bougainville through our media platforms. We are obliged to do this.

Mercury is not a problem of Bougainville alone, of course, it’s also a problem for all Papua New Guinea.

Tears of joy as Climate Challenger returns home

MANUAI MATAWAI | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

AFTER A THREE MONTH epic canoe voyage, Climate Challenger has finally returned home.

It was around 8am, making a steady 10 knots with our sails well set, that we returned to Pere, our home, after a sometimes hazardous voyage that had taken us from Manus deep into the Solomon Islands and back to PNG again, hurrying north just ahead of the cyclone season.

On Pere I could see a crowd of waiting friends, families and loved ones who had flocked to the shore.

Echoes of the steady rhythm of the garamut filtered to my ears as we sailed in through the reef.

Nearby four canoes decorated with sago palms waited to escort us to the beach front. They were the proud seafaring canoes performing a guard of honour.

We, the crew of Climate Challenger, were also dressed in our traditional attire and danced to the beat of the garamut as we sailed in.

I kept my video camera rolling, filming every action. It will be a big celebration, I thought to myself. The garamut rocked Pere as traditional dancers danced in to meet us as the guard of honour escorted us ashore.

The flower girls put wreaths around our neck and we proceeded to meet the village chiefs, councillors and church elders who had lined up to receive us.

In every corner I could hear people shouting and cheering.  

Everyone was so proud and happy to see us back safe and sound.

The crew members were rounded up by their immediate families - shaking hands, chatting, crying. I could see tears of joy everywhere.

It was a proud moment of my life. 

The challenges, the sleepless night and stressful hour were over but the voyage is not over. There is far to go in making our Pacific an environmentally secure place.

It was indeed a relief to be on Pere.

We are finally back home and reunited with our families.

New Irelanders smile in the face of adversity

LEAH BOONTHANOM | Australian Doctors International

OUR FINAL STOP IS Piliwa Health Centre on Djaul Island. Getting there involves a one-hour banana boat ride from Lamusmus across the brilliant blue ocean.

We chase a pod of playful dolphins and in turn are pursued by flying fish moving so fast I mistake them for tropical wasps.  We zoom past limestone cliffs and across shallow reefs, as the cool ocean spray splashes away the heat of the searing sun. 

Close to Piliwa, our cook Elizabeth casts over the side of the boat and reels in a giant tuna, which re-appears that night as dinner.

We are just three hours by sea from Kavieng, yet we may as well be back in Messi or Panaras.  Merrilee refers several patients for suspected TB, but it’s difficult to confirm and prescribe treatment because there aren’t any laboratory services.  She insists that the health centre help transfer these patients to Kavieng. 

The eye nurse Roland sees a nine-year-old schoolboy who’s suffered crossed eyes and refractive errors since birth, but his family has never been able to afford the journey to Kavieng for treatment.  A patrol member pays for some glasses. 

In a village at the other end of the island, water and sanitation inspector Eremiah deems the murky creek from which everyone collects water – a canoe ride and 30 minutes walk away – as unfit for drinking, but the village’s three small water tanks are inadequate for a population of 200 thirsty people, especially during the dry season.

However there is hope, as patients are diagnosed and treated and leave feeling that the provincial government and outsiders care.  There is promise, as health workers are trained on topics of their choice and their morale lifted by the patrol team’s presence. 

There is connectivity and closeness, as the HIV/AIDS educator Audrey and women’s health nurse Jennifer give a tok save on sexual health to women gathered on the grass; every opportunity is precious.

These integrated health patrols – a unique partnership between the New Ireland Provincial Government and Australian Doctors International – prove what can be achieved by working at the grassroots level with local communities: an integrated health service that is tailored to meet local needs, build capacity, disseminate information and ensure healthier communities.

We return to Kavieng after 11 long days on the road.  Our vehicles, once filled with medical equipment and drugs, are now laden with woven baskets of buai, coconuts, bananas, papaya, kaukau, yam and other foodstuffs received as gifts from the villages we have visited.

The local patrol team members are eager to return home and prepare a feast with their families, but I am still savouring my journey to quaint pockets of this evocative island province.

I am still remembering the jungle-backed beaches, warm village hospitality, and wide smiles in the face of adversity.  I am still delighting in New Ireland, a place that now feels like an old friend.

First published in Air Niugini’s ‘Paradise’ magazine, December 2012-January 2013

Crossing the flooded rivers to reach Panaras

LEAH BOONTHANOM | Australian Doctors International

AFTER MESSI WE HEAD FOR Panaras Health Centre, several bumpy hours and rising rivers away.  Where necessary, we jump out of the 4WDs and wade across rivers by foot, so the vehicles can better negotiate the rushing waters. 

During the rainy season this sole thoroughfare is completely cut off.  The locals can be isolated for weeks, save for taking to the ocean in canoes.

It’s no wonder they refer to their birthplace as the ‘Last Page’, a slice of New Ireland that feels all but forgotten.  Except for today.

Our arrival in Panaras coincides with preparations for the National Mask Festival in neighbouring New Britain Province.  For the first time ever a dance group from the West Coast has been selected to represent New Ireland – and that group just happens to be from Panaras.

We join the excited villagers for a final dress rehearsal, settling on the sandy beach beneath knotted pandanus palms.  Musicians beat kundu drums and a garamut that reverberates a beautiful wooden timbre. 

The male dancers wear turmeric yellow grass skirts and headdresses embellished with drongo feathers and sing in the old language.  The first act is a ceremonial warrior dance, showcasing strength and ferocity as the men stomp on the earth and agitate coconut shell rattles.

The second depicts four mischievous forest dwarves comically darting about in masks with oversized ears and exaggerated expressions. 

The finale re-enacts the cremation of a dead man in traditional Kuot tribal custom and, instead of being a sad affair, the mourners’ theatrical wails of anguish are met with hilarity from the crowd. 

“It’s so wonderful to see our young men keeping alive the West Coast’s traditional culture,” an elderly onlooker says proudly, pointing out a muscular mute performer who hasn’t missed a beat. “We have to preserve our culture – it’s different, it’s unique and it’s our identity.”

The following night I am awoken by water buckets clanging and minutes later, a newborn crying.  Four babies arrive by the light of a kerosene lamp during our three-day stay, all delivered safely by the health centre staff, with no need for the patrol team to intervene. 

This isn’t always the case.  PNG’s infant mortality rate is 47 deaths per 1,000 live births, comparable to Bangladesh. 

Its maternal mortality rate is 733 per 100,000 live births, the highest in the Pacific.  Key factors include peri-natal infections, post-partum haemorrhage and a lack of skilled birth attendants.

“The most difficult thing is delivering babies at night without proper lighting,” says Anasine, who is the only female amongst three community health workers stationed here.

 

Louise is committed to improving healthcare in PNG

Nursing Careers Allied Health

PAEDIATRIC NURSE AND health administrator Louise Devereux RN (right) says that international volunteer work was always on her list of things to do.

A few years ago she spent six months volunteering in Papua New Guinea for Australian Doctors International. Next month she’s wrapping up her project at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to return for round two.

“My volunteer experience was about learning and beginning to understand another country and culture,” she says”, pointing out that PNG has appalling health statistics and is in great need of improved health services.

“I was able to utilise a range of skills, bringing them together in a practical way – ‘back to basics’ – without having to worry about all the peripheral stuff like here at home.”

Louise was based in the mountains of Western Province near the border of West Papua. She facilitated an inaugural in-service training program for 59 rural health workers and hospital staff, all of whom work without any doctor supervision.

She also worked hand-in-hand with the region’s local health service provider, Catholic Health Services, to strengthen their management skills; assisted the volunteer doctor and MCH staff on patrols to outlying health centres and aid posts; and even transported village patients by 4WD to the district hospital.

“My assignment offered great variety, interesting challenges, frustrating times and good fun,” says Louise.

“It was difficult seeing patients with very advanced disease and little to offer them, and there were daily frustrations with getting even the simplest things done. However, my good memories include the simple lifestyle, making new friends, being welcomed by villagers, and balmy evening walks where everyone says hello.”

An accomplished nurse who’s also worked with the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and the Department of Human Services in Victoria, Louise is looking forward to returning to PNG.

This time she’s headed to the opposite side of the country to the isolated island region of New Ireland Province. Here, idyllic tropical beaches co-exist with tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy and yaws.

“There’s an enormous amount of work to be done in PNG,” says Louise. “Knowing what to expect will mean less cultural shock so I can jump straight into the work. I'm realistic about what can be achieved in a relatively short time [five months] and look forward to making small incremental changes that matter.”

Louise’s volunteer assignment runs from February to May this year. Australian Doctors International is currently recruiting a Project Health Manager to take over her role.

On health patrol in the New Ireland province

LEAH BOONTHANOM | Australian Doctors International

MY PLANE DIPS INTO KAVIENG late at night, soaring through a sudden tropical downpour and landing in a laid-back island paradise.  

New Ireland is remote and its white coral beaches, exotic marine life, World War II dive wrecks and uncrowded surf breaks deserve to be better known.  But that is not why I’m here.

I have come to travel around the region with the not-for-profit medical relief agency Australian Doctors International (ADI), which sends volunteer doctors on health ‘patrols’ to assist remote and rural communities. 

Founded by Australian GP and community leader Dr Peter Macdonald OAM (left), ADI’s program is based on 10 years of experience working in Western Province. 

In New Ireland, ADI has partnered with the provincial government, which contributes considerable funding and dedicated health staff for patrols. 

Last year, ADI’s volunteer doctors treated almost 3,000 patients and provided over 550 hours of on-the-job training for health workers.  It also distributed medical equipment worth over $145,000 donated by Australian and PNG organisations to needy rural health centres.

“When we go out as an integrated team with ADI, people get health services that the government otherwise can’t routinely provide,” says Dominic Sahamie, Director of Health for New Ireland Province.

Health is, according to some of the communities we visit, the only government service currently reaching rural areas. 

Most of the province’s 160,000 people are subsistence farmers who exist in simple villages without running water, electricity, phone coverage or proper roads.  

Even Namatanai Hospital – just 270 kilometres south of the provincial capital Kavieng – lacks running water and reliable power.

I join an ADI health patrol headed by Dr Merrilee Frankish (pictured here with a patient), who gave up a successful rural GP practice outside Cairns to volunteer in PNG for six months. 

Merrilee speaks fluent Tok Pisin, learned as a medical student in PNG’s Madang and Lae Provinces 30 years ago, and has expertise in public health, tropical medicine, obstetrics and surgery.  She’s also worked with Aboriginal communities in Australia.

“PNG is Australia’s nearest and poorest neighbour,” she says.  “All my life's work seems directed towards this choice.”

The local patrol team members include eye nurse Roland, TB coordinator Wilson, HIV/AIDS educator Audrey, women’s health nurse Jennifer, water and sanitation inspector Eremiah, and dental therapists Simon and Matthew, who are all very committed.

“These integrated patrols are our only opportunity to reach the rural people in faraway places,” they explain.

Our destination is the isolated West Coast.  We set off in 4WD troop carriers down the Boluminski Highway on the East Coast, planning to circumnavigate the island. 

Flanked by palm trees, we pass picturesque villages with swept sand gardens and trade stores selling rice, bully beef and other basic supplies.  

Smoke from kitchen fires cooking kaukau (sweet potato), taro and yam billow through sago leaf roofs.   

Laughing kids kick balls across hot, dusty fields.  Plantation workers wield knives on impossibly long handles to fell coconuts and palm fruit, key sources of regional income.

PNG failing to act on forced marriages, says rights group

Radio Australia

A NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATION in Papua New Guinea says the PNG government has failed to act to protect young girls and teenagers from forced marriages.

There are reports that girls as young as five are being sold by their parents to older men, sometimes foreigners working in the forestry and mining sectors.

“We've got a wide range of reports that come in on young girls that are being forced into marriages or especially into sexual relationships with older men,” said Ume Wainetti of the PNG Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council.

“There's a lot of mistreatment of these young girls because many of them are forced to marry men who are already married,” Wainetti said

“We’re talking about girls between the ages of 16 and 14. But other ones who are forced into sexual relationships are much, much younger.

“Our government has not responded to any of these things. Maybe, when some international agencies come and say it's happening, they'll take note. But when we say it they don't.

“They really should take note and, when major projects are being developed, this issue should be addressed…  I'm talking about international companies in the extractive industries.

“Most of the time it's through the workers in the company the girls are being sold or being encouraged to get into this type of relationship or men who've got money, especially in the forestry development areas, Wainetti said.

A tale of two Fly Rivers; a tale of two journalists

SHARON ISAFE | PNGExposed Blog

IN A RECENT ARTICLE published in the Global Mail, freelance journalist Jo Chandler (pictured) discovered the secret behind a spate of deaths along the Fly River.

It's no mystery she wrote, sadly the disturbing mortality rate is a product of an absence in basic health services, combined with severe social dislocation caused by the Ok Tedi mine.

Citing evidence from a World Health Organisation briefing Chandler wrote:

Their examinations identify sickness and disease emerging from years of accumulated neglect, compounded by dirty water, poor nutrition, crowded living conditions, too many babies, lack of roads and power, decaying or abandoned health facilities and hardscrabble lives made harder by shifting tides and islands of sediment, soil erosion and vegetation dieback, and the loss of fish catches and crops.

She continued several paragraphs later:

Ok Tedi’s operations over a generation have provided critical infrastructure, opportunity and services to some of the world’s most isolated and challenged communities, plus 2,000 direct jobs (95 per cent of them going to local people) and as many again spun off through local businesses and subcontractors.

But in the South Fly villages I visit the only evidence of substantial trickle down from its USD1.45 billion annual revenue is the sediment. It raises the riverbed and spills water onto the land, wiping out food gardens and spoiling drinking water, even exposing old graves. Such issues are serious enough to prompt the mining company to consider relocating severely impacted communities.

One senses something calamitous when one of the most profitable mines in the world is surrounded by some of the worst displays of ‘development’-based rural impoverishment.

Yet not all journalists see things this way. With their friends smarting inside the Ok Tedi Development Foundation (OTDF)  - the ones charged with maladministering community compensation payments from Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) –  some in the media fraternity have taken it upon themselves to find some good news stories, its Christmas after all.

Cue Malum Nalu.

 

Are we talking polygamy; or are we talking property?

PETER KRANZ

IS POLYGAMY TO BLAME for some of Papua New   Guinea’s social ills, or is it that some men treat women like property? And, if so, who are the guilty parties?

I recently visited some good friends - an Australian man and a PNG highlands wife - who have been happily married for around 30 years.

The wife had an interesting story to tell.

She was alone and friendless, having been rejected by her family, and was wandering the streets of Port   Moresby at risk of falling into a life of degradation when (being an attractive young girl) she was befriended by an expatriate Australian
man.

He became infatuated and asked her to join him in Australia.  He left PNG and, after three abortive contacts by the girl, he eventually provided references for a visa and the wherewithal to come to Australia.

So she made the big step of travelling to Australia and met her husband to be.

But he had changed his mind –  perhaps because of racism or the embarrassment of having a black wife - and told her she should find another man to marry and he would happily “hand her over”.

She had the great fortune to meet a good man, and was duly 'handed over'.

This story has a good ending as the two married, have three lovely kids and are still living in a blessed relationship in Australia.

What irritates me, though, is that the expat she first met thought he could get rid of his obligations by palming her off to another man, like an unwanted second hand car.

There are many like stories of PNG women in Australia, some with much sadder endings. The stories should be told.

So who can criticise polygamy in PNG with good conscience when Australians have treated Papua New Guinean women like this?

The reason I relate that story about our friend is that is closely mirrors my wife, Rose’s, experience.

Some years before we met, Rose was befriended by an Australian expat, who took her in as a haus meri, 'gud taim girl' and babysitter. Rose looked after and loved his two kids for three years.

He regaled her with promises that he would take her to Australia to become his wife.  But then his contract expired and he left PNG with his kids.

That was the last she ever heard from him - except to find out later that he already had a wife and family in Brisbane.

She has had no contact or knowledge of the children she learned to love and helped bring up. But she still has their photos and remembers them fondly to this day.

I have heard many similar stories. Shameful.

Patch offers pain-free way to stop disease in PNG

The Guardian (UK)

THE "NANOPATCH" IS ABOUT a square centimetre in size, it administers a
minute, needle-free vaccine dose to a person's skin, dramatically reduces costs and needs neither to be administered by trained medical staff nor to be
refrigerated.

But Professor Mark Kendall, a former Oxford rocket scientist turned bioengineer at the University of Queensland, is cautious about the prospects for what many are hoping could revolutionise infectious disease prevention in developing countries, where around 17 million people die from avoidable diseases each year.

"It has many advantages. It is pain-free, very low cost and could be self-administered. It could be posted to people as it needs no skill to administer. Where [some vaccines] cost $50 each, this could reduce the cost to $1," he says.

The traditional syringe and needle vaccination, which has barely changed since it was invented in 1853, has big disadvantages, he says.

It injects the vaccine into the muscle, which has few immune cells; it needs a relatively large shot of vaccine, and it poses problems with needle contamination and disposal.

So far, his research team has tested vaccine patches against influenza, human papillomavirus (HPV) and even malaria on mice.

"The patch uses an applicator to place a very small dose of vaccine directly on the skin where immune cells are most abundant. We do not understand fully why it works so well [but] we do know it works fantastically well on animals.

“If we can translate that to humans … it could potentially change the world of vaccinations. But we still have a very long way to go," he says.

The great hope is that in the event of a pandemic, these patches could be posted to thousands or even millions of people because they don't need refrigeration and can be self-administered.

Kendall has just returned from Papua New Guinea, which has the highest incidence of HPV – a virus that can lead to cervical cancer, which is a leading cause f death in young women in developing countries.

He took three prototypes of the patch and these were given to local healthcare workers to apply to hospital patients.

The success of the trials means the team may be able to fast track full clinical trials on humans next year, Kendall says.

The first would be carried out in his home city of Brisbane, followed up in PNG. Even so, he says, it could take 10 years before the nanopatch is on the market.

Brother's transplant saves Dr Kendaura’s life

ALISON BRANLEY | Newcastle Herald (NSW)

GAINING access to health care in Papua New   Guinea is difficult but becomes even more important when the doctor delivering the services gets sick too.

That is what happened at Goroka Hospital when acting medical services director Dr Kapiro Kendaura suffered kidney failure.

Despite receiving regular dialysis treatment, he was only months from death before the intervention of Hunter New England health infection prevention and control director John Ferguson.

Dr Ferguson travels to PNG each year to teach, and heard of his colleague’s plight.

Some months and a massive community and logistical effort later, Dr Kendaura was flown to John  Hunter Hospital to receive a kidney transplant from his brother Steven, a high school teacher.

Dr Kendaura was released from hospital a week after his surgery early this month and will soon return to Goroka where his 100-bed hospital serves some of the 300,000 people who live in the highlands.

‘‘I’m so lucky. I owe the hospital a lot. They spent a lot of time and resources helping me,’’ Dr Kendaura said. ‘‘I don’t know how to thank these people.’’

The surgery was made possible after the health care service offered its services pro bono and hospital staff raised $15,000 for travel, accommodation and medication costs.

The hospital has done work for PNG previously, but nothing as major as a transplant.

‘‘Chronic renal failure is a death sentence in Papua New Guinea,’’ Dr Ferguson said.

Grass-fruits! Inspiring stories of community self-help

EMMA WAKPI | Supported by the Rob & Meg Parer Writing Fellowship

Joshua told the people, Make yourselves acceptable to worship the Lord, because He is going to do some amazing things for us (Joshua 3:5, CEV)

13/11/12 -14:14:37hrs - Emma I landed in pop now… 21:29:26hrs – Left pop 4pm and arrived 9pm now - drived on a roughy road n arrived now at Afore - overnight and get home tomorrow

14/11/12 - 14:40:08hrs – Leaving Afore on a hire car going to Itokama… 16:48:52hrs – ARIVED NOW ITOKAMA

SO WROTE JOHN KUMBO, a bible translator of the Barai tribe (population 5,000) and chairman of the Barai Non Formal Education Association (BNEA).

He had been in Goroka attending a consultation network comprising various government and non government organisations whose common bond is “holistic transformation” using CHE (Community Health Evangelism developed by Medical Ambassadors International) as the tool to facilitate community development.

And it was not only John who had travelled great distances. The United Church Health Services of Milne Bay had three representatives who braved rough seas to travel from Salamo, Ferguson Island.

Manus Provincial Health Department also sent representatives as did the newly formed Jiwaka Province.

Other people came from the settlements of Port Moresby, the mountains of Chimbu and Eastern Highlands.

Joseph Sukwianomb from the Prime Ministers Department (Director 20/50 Vision sector) chose the rather humble meeting over the National Health Conference that was being held in the same week.

The theme of the fifth annual conference held in Kefamo EHP from 4-7 November was “be prepared for the unexpected, be prepared for surprises” and the accompanying Bible text was taken from Joshua.

It was felt that too often we focus to on the accomplishment of our goals without taking into account the unexpected ripple effects that impact individuals and communities in various ways.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I came away in awe at the amazing work carried out by unlikely heroes in various areas of Papua New Guinea.

These people see development as their responsibility and have raised their hands to do something about it.

There really were surprising and unexpected stories told and, as we approach Christmas and remember that this season is about love and the pouring out of oneself for the betterment of mankind, these individuals epitomized that.

For them their work is more than a job or something to gain; for them it is about the love of their fellow man and the sharing of their knowledge and abilities so that “peace and goodwill to men” can be realised.

Here are some of my summaries of what for me were highlights of this year’s conference.

Barai Non Formal Education Association: 21 villages working for their own prosperity [John Kumbo]

Mr Kumbo told of how 10 years of constant community interaction using CHE materials (which he and his team translated into their language) had seen marked improvements in combating malnutrition, increased immunisation (almost 100%) and almost 100% literacy. The whole language group of 21 villages in Afore district of Oro Province has been affected. 

In addition to the CHE translated booklets, John and his team have also translated booklets teaching on cooking, agriculture and budgeting. As a result of this there has been reconciliation among groups of people with the 21 villages.

A ripple effect of this endeavour has been that they have now registered an association, Afore Hope for the Disabled and are teaching from the CHE lessons on disability looking at how they can better integrate the disabled into their communities, allowing them to actively participate in community life and decision making processes. 

Living Light Four Square in Port Moresby: Fearless mother combating TB in Moresby settlements [Egma Mua]

Egma is a mother of five children (aged 2 to 16) and is a volunteer from Four Square Living Light Church in Kaugere who has been working in settlements near the church, where CHE volunteers (settlement residents) are also trained in TB DOTS (Direct Observation of Treatment Shortcourse).

The CHE volunteers each find a TB patient in their own settlement, take them to the health centre, and each day observe their taking the TB medicine for six months. For this they receive a small monthly allowance of K70.

With this amazing program of 300 volunteers some communities are now clean of tuberculosis. Egma now gives a five-minute time slot each Sunday between worship and the sermon for a health talk which so far focuses on the major issue of TB.

Egma has been doing this work for nearly six years using her own time and resources. She travels around on PMVs and walks the notorious settlements of Port Moresby with her volunteers.

She related a story of when she was at Koki market and about to get on a PMV when she was dragged back by a youth. The young man gently held onto her and told her to wait.

As she waited, watching a couple of youths go around picking pockets, she asked the young man if they had ever met. He replied, “Yu no save long mi tasol mama mi save long yu na wok yu mekim” (‘You don’t know me, mama, but I know the work you do’).

He then helped her into the bus and went on his way.

Kundiawa Pastors’ Orphan Care initiative (Orkids) [Pastor Felix]

After our conference in 2011, Egma went to her village of Om Kolai in the Gumine district of Simbu Province. She felt that, while she was doing good things in Port Moresby, her own community could also benefit from this training. She met with pastors and leaders from 18 churches and conducted a three-day workshop.

In looking at issues in their community, praying and doing house-to-house surveys, the pastors realised that adopted children (orphans or single parent children) were neglected by the families caring for them, resulting in 200 malnourished and unschooled kids.

Girls barely reaching puberty were pregnant and drug and alcohol abuse was high. Pastor Felix, as chairman, drew up a schedule to share the load for a three times a week program of Bible teaching, feeding a healthy meal, teaching carers about hygiene and cleanliness, distributing used clothing, and taking turns to make sure the kids went to school. Some have been taken in by the pastors’ families.

In discussing whether a care centre might be a good idea, the group urged them not to warehouse kids, but to work with their families to help improve living conditions and to teach about cultivating crops so they don’t lose the land they have a right to own.

St Mary’s Catholic Parish, Goroka – A vibrant congregation impacting their neighbours [Joyce Kuias]

Joyce Kuias is a full time mum taking care of her paraplegic son and two primary school children, yet she still finds time to teach kindergarten classes, nutritional cooking lessons for mothers and to help train cell groups in CHE healthy home lessons.

Joyce, together with her priest Fr John Ryan, have so far established 146 healthy homes in the settlements. They have also encouraged their church members to know their HIV status. Joyce and her husband along with Fr Ryan were the first to get tested.

They are continuing to encourage young couples who want to marry to know their HIV status and to continue counselling once their status is known.

The CHE program has influenced the whole church around Goroka and has extended to more congregations as their small groups study the Bible together and encourage Bible reading in every home, reach out to the poor and establish healthy homes. Joyce is now also teaching sports teams and children’s groups in holistic development.

Up the Fly without a paddle

JO CHANDLER | The Global Mail

KABUSI KEBEI’S DEATHBED IS A GRASS MAT, her pillow a knot of rags. She rises from it with a quiet greeting, showing more grace than a stranger’s rude intrusion on her dying deserves.

She endures my few questions, but plainly Kebei just wants to lie back down by the embers of her fire, even though all those around her are sweltering in the steamy build-up to the wet season.

She is in pain and I, ashamed, retreat. She will never know that she’s been cast as a bit player in the latest chapter of an epic narrative of power, politics, money, hope, expectation and exploitation — miscast, as it turns out.

And yet hers is likely the truest tale to be found on this murky stretch of Papua New Guinea’s fabled Fly River.

I’ve been led to Kebei by a posse of her neighbours, villagers living on the palm-fringed bank of the Fly delta. They identify the mother of eight as a possible casualty of a strange new plague rumoured to be striking their remote communities; one said to cause women to bleed, sores to weep and strange lumps to grow.

They suspect it may have been brewed in the brown water of their infamously despoiled river, the gutter for 30 years of operations of the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine, 1,000 kilometres upstream.

Each year the mine — the mother lode for the PNG economy, accounting for 16 per cent of gross domestic product in 2011 — dumps 40 to 50 million tonnes of waste rock and tailings in the Ok Tedi tributary which flows into the Fly River (down from a peak of 90 million in 2002). Porgera gold mine also sends much of its waste down this waterway.

The story of a mysterious disease outbreak in the remote South Fly, where many communities can only be reached by boat or air, has been making headlines in the PNG press.

It has also prompted questions in the Parliament — including calls from three Fly River MPs to close the mine on health and environmental grounds — and is now creeping into the international media.

The issue follows a leaked, six-month-old internal report by Ok Tedi’s development arm, scoping out concerns raised by women community leaders. The company referred the report — which urged immediate dispatch of an expert health team to investigate further — to its health agency, but no other action was taken.

The leaked report surfaces at the same time as Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) is negotiating compensation deals with 100,000 Fly River people living downstream of its operations.

The company has plans to wring another decade of life from its mine, which had been due to close in 2014. At a recent mining conference in Sydney, OTML announced the deal was all but sealed, with most communities already signed – the community of the Manawete region, which I visit, is one of two holding back.

Meanwhile, upstream in the political headwaters, there’s a mighty struggle for control of the $1.4 billion fund Ok Tedi spawned for the PNG nation, the Sustainable Development Program (PNGSDP).

In a unique arrangement, a battered BHP divested its 52 per cent stake in the mine to the people of PNG via the Singapore-registered SDP in 2002. This came after BHP conceded the mine’s environmental fallout was much worse than it had anticipated, costing it dearly in reputation and out-of-court settlements to afflicted Fly communities.

With the government of PNG deciding to keep the mine running, the deal indemnified BHP against future legal liabilities. Two-thirds of SDP’s money is locked away for long-term development after the mine closes.

Today the fund’s value has exploded beyond all expectations, courtesy of the resources boom. If the Ok Tedi mine — as of last year wholly owned by the people of PNG — continues to operate until 2022 as now planned, the value of the program’s long-term projects will swell to $3.7 billion, according to a recent independent report on SDP.

In the meantime, SDP rolls out an ambitious development program worth more than $100 million in 2011, making it a heavyweight aid agency equivalent to some of the nation’s biggest external donors.

In a landscape of desperate need, cashed-up SDP is a potent resource, and some of PNG’s political big men are increasingly resentful of external influence over the fund, particularly BHP’s lingering veto over the shape of the board.

These tensions spilled into a pronouncement by PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill last month that prominent Australian economist and longtime PNG mining player Professor Ross Garnaut — chairman of Ok Tedi Mining, and until recently also chair of SDP — was no longer welcome in PNG.

Garnaut had reportedly said, on the subject of the stockpiling wealth, that it was “tempting for political figures to think of better ways of using it right now, rather than putting it into long-term development”. O’Neill blasted this as a slur on his nation’s reputation.

Acutely aware that the vortex of politics and money swirling around Ok Tedi is as treacherous and turbid as the notorious Fly tides, I nevertheless take a plane from Port Moresby and then — at the invitation of the Ok Tedi Mine Impacted Area Association, a community group which has been agitating on health concerns — a fast dinghy from Daru, and wade in to see something of the realities of life in the South Fly.

This is the opening section of a beautifully written feature article on the problems besetting Papua New Guinea’s most impoverished province. You can read Jo Chandler’s complete story here

Australian doctor shocked by PNG health conditions

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners | Good Practice

DR CHRIS MATTHEWS expected third-world conditions when he organised his two-week trip to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, but what he saw at Kokoda Hospital was more primitive than anything he had anticipated.

“I was shocked,” the NSW doctor told Good Practice. “I was shocked by the state of the roads, I was shocked by the lack of bridges over rivers, I was shocked by the hospital not having a steriliser.”

Dr Matthews had worked in developing countries before; in 1995 he moved to Saudi Arabia for nine years to help improve the country's primary care network.

There were challenges, but they were nothing compared to what he saw in PNG.

With no doctors in the area, Kokoda Hospital is run only by a small group of nurses and village health volunteers, who have no medical training but help as best they can.

The hospital has a generator, but it can only produce a few hours of electricity each day. Many basic medicines are missing, the only ambulance has been out of order for nearly a year and it's difficult for workers to make the most of the limited resources they have.

“There was a haemoglobin measuring device in the hospital, which wasn't being used because they didn't have batteries for it,” Dr Matthews said. “I walked off to the local shop and bought some batteries for them so that they could run the thing.”

A number of factors make Australia's northern neighbour one of the world's most difficult places to implement a healthcare system.

Most of the country's seven million people live in remote or mountainous areas, often divided into tribes living subsistence-based lifestyles that have hardly changed in hundreds of years.

With more than 850 known languages spoken across the country – many of which are unrelated to each other – communication between tribes is difficult and tensions are common.

This has contributed to a fractious political environment, with unstable party allegiances, regular leadership disputes and a lack of consistency in terms of policy.

Add to that a dearth of infrastructure and a high rate of poverty and some of the causes of PNG's health problems become clear.

In September 2013, the RACGP Foundation will lead a group on a 10-day trek along the Kokoda Track

Ecoforestry - creating solutions for PNG’s forests

SAM MOKO

WITH LOGGING AND CLEARING for oil palm threatening many forests in Papua New Guinea, some communities are still standing strong and protecting their forests.

Last week I was out with a Greenpeace team filming and photographing ecoforestry as a solution for a community in East New Britain.

Tavolo and two neighbouring village communities are protecting 32,000 ha of forest in a wildlife management area together with 4000 ha for ecoforestry.

Ecoforestry protects the forest ecosystem while at the same time providing an income for the community from small-scale portable sawmilling.

I was amazed by how strong this community is in their stand against logging and conversion for oil palm.

The people of Tavolo have seen and experienced the impacts logging has had on other areas in East New Britain. They have depended on the forest for generations.

They maintain a strong connection to their forest as customary landowners and have strong vision with leaders who are showing the way for the younger generations.

I was really impressed by their careful way they look after their forest. Most of the people I came across told me a story of the forest and its importance to them.

A new threat to the forest of this peaceful community are the so-called Special Agriculture Business Leases. This land grabbing scheme is a real threat to lives of the Tavolo people and many other communities around PNG.

Greenpeace documented this threat in a recent report called Up For Grabs. The leaders of Tavolo have spoken up against this land grab through the government’s Commission of Inquiry.

I was even asked when the results of this enquiry will be presented to the government to stop this from happening.

So we hope to bring the story to PNG and the world of the threat of SABLs to PNG communities and how ecoforestry can be a solution.

Sam Moko is a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Governor Soso advocates for adolescent sexual health

Pacific News Centre

JULIE SOSO, THE FIRST female governor to be elected in Papua New Guinea, is in New Zealand this week to launch a report on adolescent sexual and reproductive health in the Pacific.

The report ‘Pacific Youth: Their Rights, Our Future’, to be launched tomorrow at Parliament House in Wellington, is based on the findings of the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development (NZPPD) which ran an open hearing on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in the Pacific in June this year.

Governor Soso was one of three women elected to PNG’s parliament in August. She is not only the first woman governor, she is also the first woman to be elected to parliament from the Eastern Highlands.

NZPPD chair Dr Jackie Blue said: “The report and the recommendations made in it will help to guide the work of NZPPD over the coming years. We are very happy Governor Julie Soso will be a part of the report launch.

“NZPPD advocates for gender equality and to protect the rights of women and girls in the Pacific. While Governor Soso may be a new member of parliament she has been a community leader and a strong advocate for the rights of women and girls for many years.

“We’re looking forward to working with Governor Soso on implementing the report recommendations in the future,” Dr Blue said.

The recommended actions in the report include:

Encouraging youth engagement – involve adolescents in decision making processes that directly affect them, particularly about their own sexual and reproductive health.

Supporting legislative reform to decriminalize homosexuality and to reduce stigma and discrimination faced by young people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Ensuring legislation and policies protect the rights of women and girls to eliminate all forms of discrimination and gender based violence.

The report launch will be attended by NZPPD members, representatives from the Pacific and New Zealand and other key people.

Governor Soso and Julieanne Wickham, a young woman from the Solomon Islands, will both address the attendees at the launch, sharing their experiences of advocating for the rights of women and girls in the Pacific.

PNG child health is improving, & it’s all about the people

TREVOR DUKE | Centre for International Child Health

I HAVE SEEN MANY IMPROVEMENTS in child health in Papua New Guinea in the 15 years that I have been working with the health system there, led by committed young paediatricians who have designed and implemented a national plan for child health.

As a member of the National Child Health Advisory Committee and the Paediatric Society, I was part of a review held in September to assess whether this plan is on track. At that meeting, leaders in child health presented strong evidence of progress in the most challenging of problems.

Immunisation is one of the most cost-effective ways to save lives. For vaccines to reach every district, the Health Department has identified the 20 lowest-performing and most isolated areas and completed a stocktake of childhood immunisations, services and vaccine supplies.

AusAID has provided $1 million to implement the Reaching Every District initiative in concert with support from WHO and UNICEF. The Health Department is also partnering with AusAID, WHO and UNICEF to provide mass vaccination across the whole country, against measles and polio.

With revitalised services for the hardest to reach, this is already making a difference.

The Haemophilus influenzae vaccine against pneumonia and meningitis was introduced successfully in 2008, and the pneumococcal vaccine is to be introduced in 2014. The Health Department is also active in prevention of pneumonia through improving nutrition (including breastfeeding), reducing indoor air pollution, encouraging hand-washing and early treatment.

Treatment programs that introduced oxygen therapy have seen a 35% reduction in death from pneumonia. Pneumonia, diarrhoea and neonatal conditions are the major causes of hospitalisation and child deaths in PNG.

Neo-natal health is a continuing priority; while child and infant mortality has fallen in the last decade, neonatal mortality remains static at 28-30 per 1,000 live births.

As part of an effort to implement better standards of neo-natal care, the health department has assessed five hospitals in the Highlands district and established a model for quality district-level services.

Malaria is no longer one of the top three causes of hospital admission for children due to the widespread use of insecticide-treated bed nets. The health department acknowledges that maintaining this program beyond the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will be a challenge.

With support from the Clinton Health Access Initiative, rural clinics are now HIV testing, counselling and treatment centres. Effective programs to prevent transmission of HIV from parents to children have seen the rate of infection to newborns from mothers who have HIV falling from 30% in 2007 to 15% in 2012, meaning many fewer children are born with HIV.

Deep sea miners terminate controversial Solwara project

DANIEL CRESSEY | Nature News Blog

CONTROVERSIAL DEEP-SEA MINING company Nautilus Minerals is “terminating the construction” of its flagship project off the coast of Papua New Guinea and laying off staff.

The company has been embroiled in a dispute with the PNG government over the Solwara 1 Project, which aimed to extract copper, gold and silver from around 1,600 metres under the sea.

In a statement Nautilus said it was no longer willing to pay the full costs of developing this project while its dispute with the government continued.

As well as stopping construction of its ‘seafloor production system’, 60 jobs at the company will be lost and any future production at the site will experience “considerable delay” says the company.

Nautilus has been hugely controversial since it appeared on the scene as one of the leading companies in the emerging area of deep sea mining.

Nautilus CEO Mike Johnston insisted his company remains committed to “developing the world’s first commercial sea floor copper-gold project and launching the deep water sea floor resource production industry, whilst maintaining an environmentally and socially responsible approach”.

Chalapi Pomat comments:

Small coastal villages depend on the ocean for food and security - therefore clean oceans everywhere are important to them.

Yes, we can dream dreams and innovate - and I've spent my whole career doing just that one way or the other - but from where my roots belong - it is all about food security.

And for many people, food security comes from the very stretch of ocean which the PNG government looked like allowing foreign miners to destroy by digging up the sea bed at Solwara 1.

For me, putting food on the table comes first then we can have the time and energy to dream and go about ways to improve our life in pursuit of greater happiness.

PNG sexual violence ‘unique outside a war zone’

Agence France-Presse

THE PRESIDENT OF Medecins Sans Frontieres has pressed Papua New Guinea's new government to address its epidemic levels of sexual and domestic violence, calling it a "humanitarian crisis".

Unni Karunakara (pictured) was in PNG to visit MSF projects targeting family and sexual violence and met with officials from prime minister Peter O'Neill's government to urge action on the pervasive issue.

MSF (Doctors Without Borders) estimates that 70% of women in PNG will be raped or physically assaulted in their lifetime and Dr Karunakara said the levels of violence were unique outside a war-zone or state of civil unrest.

"There is no open warfare in the country and the violence is (inherent) in how the society negotiates disputes, how they negotiate conflict between tribes, how they negotiate relationships within the family," said Dr Karunakara.

"We consider it to be an ongoing humanitarian crisis."

Between its two projects in Lae and Tari, Dr Karunakara said MSF would see 60 rape cases a month and some women would return time and again.

"The status of women in society is very low, women are often blamed -- if a woman is raped she is blamed for letting that happen to her," he said.

The gravity of sexual violence is made worse by the country's HIV/AIDS problem -- almost one percent of its population of nearly seven million is estimated to be living with the disease.

More than 60% of the infected are women and girls.

Efforts to tackle the problem to date had largely focused on the law and order response -- training police and judges -- but Dr Karunakara said there needed to be a greater emphasis on medical and psychological support.

He said his meetings with government officials had been "extremely positive" and they had "at least expressed their support in trying to address this".

"I think now it's time to go beyond words and follow it up with some concrete action," he said.

John Fowke comments:

Vocal Attituders may like to turn their social consciences to this problem.

Because of hue-and-cry raised by international agencies over the state of the major Angau Hospital in Lae and the provincial hospital in Tari, MSF have been managing, staffing and in every respect supporting these two institutions for several years.

Angau is the second-biggest and thus second-most- visible hospital in the whole country, but does the government care enough to make the changes needed?

Or in the face of the huge fortune said to be about to tumble into the nations coffers, is it busy with other plans and projects? So far as I am aware nothing has been said about upgrading health services and the supply of medicines in recent times.

Whilst it is an ongoing concern that paedophiles are  so widely present in religious organisations, there are very many other equally horrific, violent happenings specific to PNG, going on every day in villages and settlements throughout the land.

Climate Challenger voyage - faith, challenge, success

MANUAI MATAWAI | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

Faith

I AM FROM a tribal group know as Titans who are members of a faith group known as Wind Nation, a nation of spirits. We believe that the wind is our Creator.

Our physical body is the home of the spirits, without whom we will have no life.

Our physical body and morals and ethics must obey and comply with the spirits’ rules and orders for the Wind to answer our prayers. This doctrine and philosophy is intimately connected to our culture.

So here we are in our open canoe, Climate Challenger, on a long ocean voyage, which soon to come to an end - curtailed by the cyclone season.

No one is able to separate our culture from the environment. Our lives and the way we live them always connect to the spirit of ocean, land and forest. If we respect nature, nature will respect us.

Challenge

It is very challenging for us to obey cultural rules such as we must not sleep with any woman before or during this canoe voyage; or whistle, laugh or sing when in the ocean. You will expect bad luck if you disobey.

Can we obey the rules?

As we set sail, leaving our home soil and crossing east for 120 nautical miles across the long stretch of open ocean between Manus and Kavieng, we encountered strong winds and rough seas.

Everyone was sleepless. He voyage was a first timer for some of our crew members. To make it worse, some were afraid, doubting that we would reach our destination or get lost.

Then there came a thunderstorm ahead of us. And we were shivering in the cold night as we bailed water from the canoe till daybreak.

It was a test of our faith. The next day, the sea was calm with sunshine.

When I asked two crew members about their experience after the trip, this is what they had to say.

Joseph Ambou (22) - “I was afraid at first but the waves and rough sea make me strong. I have no fear now”

Bernard Checheng Manus (43) - ‘I do love sailing on small canoe but it is my first time on a long voyage. I do not fear for my life; I know we will do it. I am happy to be part of this voyage. This trip has enhanced my navigation skills. I will be seeing places that I have not been before and look forward to return back to Manus safely.”

But it is not over yet, there is another long journey and long ocean to cover. The faith of our journey lies within the crew. It was my duty to ensure the crews was well disciplined. It is just another challenging task to do.

As many people continue to echo that this is an historic voyage, it is something that one cannot erase from the natural history book which is the brain.

Yes, we have created a history for our people but what have we achieved so far? What have we learnt and experienced on this journey?

Success

There are more success stories to tell but these are some.

We are proud of our cultural heritage taking us to places where we had never been before and connecting us to Pacific communities using this small traditional canoe.

The legacy of this voyage lies in how we made it through using a small canoe and crossing over many miles of ocean. It is about our connection with nature.

Sharing our lessons learnt from our climate change adaptation practices in Manus has created impact in coastal communities around the Solomon Islands.

We have filmed and captured great stories about climate change issues affecting the people of Solomon Islands and PNG and hopefully the video can be use to lever further financial support.

The trip has enhanced the crews’ navigation skills and made them more resilient, courageous and determined to accept that challenge of another long journey in future.