Education, health and tech: A chance at impacting Papua New Guinea villages
Growing up in one of the most remote parts of the planet, I was compelled to belief in the ideal that education would be the greatest equaliser. For a village boy, it was a small seed that planted hope in my heart. My sister grew up challenged to quit education at the end of high school because of the paternalistic society. Expectations demanded that by her late teens, she should be ready for marriage — schooling was viewed as a burdensome endeavour for a female whose socially constructed role was seen to be solely in a household.
Together with my siblings, we escaped these challenges and prejudices and gained qualifications we never thought possible. My sister is a dental surgeon and I am doing a Doctorate (PhD) in law at the Australian National University while our other siblings have graduated from universities and colleges.
But hundreds of thousands of children across the country, where 87% of its 7 million population still live in remote villages share our struggle. We came together and feel it is our duty to contribute to effecting ‘change’, to empower girls from the social prejudices and let children in villages enjoy the freedom that comes with education.
We established the Kama Scholars Foundation (KSF) in 2013 to provide scholarships to village students and support the learning environment in village schools. The name “Kama” was chosen in honour of our father Mr Kama Kuman, a 67-year-old native who served under the British and Australian colonial governments from 1960s — 1980s and advocated fearlessly for better health and education in the villages.
Three years on and KSF have provided 76 scholarships, 22 computer sets for e-learning and over 60 cartons of library books to village schools in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. To address the issue of gender inequality and the value of female students, we provide special categories of scholarships for girls. Encourage by this initiative, academic performance of female students have increased dramatically with 90% of the 2016 scholarships recipients all female.
The Foundation has built an early childhood learning centre in the village of Gumine District as well initiated a ‘clean water program’, supplying of water tank and engaging Australian medical interns in community health centres as part of its community health programs to address health and nutrition concerns. These projects are at their infant stage but with more financial backing from supporters and donors, the Foundation envisages meaningful growth and substantial impact for the community otherwise depraved of basic health and education services by its government.
What I want to get out of UNLEASH is to develop my idea of establishing a Community Innovation and Health Education Centre (CIHEC). I have observed a lack of systematic awareness strategy and support networks to respond to women’s health concerns in remote villages. The village health clinics are often 6–8 hours walk over mountains and the staff are often under trained and out of medicinal stock.
A pressing issue identified in SDG 3 is child mortality and maternal health. These are part of women’s health issues and are largely disregarded in remote villages where women are already marginalised in a paternalistic society. According to Australian Doctors International, 60 per cent of women in PNG do not give birth at a health facility or hospital and 10 per cent of all deaths in PNG are due to perinatal conditions, making PNG to have the highest child mortality rate of 733/100,000 in the Pacific.
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent report on PNG identified maternal nutrition as very low and a contributing factor. Communities are not informed adequately on nutritional diet. So the issue is three fold — accessibility to health services, education on healthy living and countering the negative aspects of cultural practices.
I hope that through the establishment of the Community Innovation and Health Education Centre (CIHEC), our agency, the Kama Foundation, can support existing and new health platforms as well as coordinate community action, disseminate nutritional campaigns and engage technology such as mobile phones to connect health workers to patients or mothers undergoing maternity in remote villagers.
Attending UNLEASH is an opportunity to explore my ideas and develop practical solutions using a broad intersection of education, health and technology to address the relevant SDGs. As the recipient of the 2016 Commonwealth Pacific Young Person of the Year (an honour that included meeting Queen Elizabeth II) and chosen as one of 17 Young Leaders leading the 17 SDGs by the One Young World, I hope to continue assisting the resilient village communities of PNG into the future.
Please visit our Website and Facebook pages below. You can contact us at thekamafoundation@gmail.com.
https://www.facebook.com/KamaScholarsFoundation/
Minima Village, Gumine District (Papua New Guinea)
