Skip to main content

Mando, Papua New Guinea

The completed classrooms - last day in Mando



Me and newborn at Goroka Hospital






Our PNG "home"

I am starting my new blog to share the amazing experience of being a Rotary volunteer in Mando in the Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. Mando is an absolutely beautiful village, in the mountains about 2000 metres above sea level, and approximately 60 km from Goroka. How did this happen? A few years ago, I met a remarkable woman with a vision, Wendy Stein, who wanted to make a difference and bring hope to people whose life expectancy was the second worst in the world. I promised to help her project to bring better educational and health facilites to this village and last month, my husband Jim and I were part of the Highland Dream team. Essentially, Jim was involved with building three new classrooms - no mean feat without a supply of water and electricity. I established a women's support group and taught classes in jewellery making, knitting and crochet in an effort to supplement their family incomes as subsistence farmers. I also experienced other aspects of the project - painting blackboards, sorting library books, making library borrowing cards, cooking, painting signs , taking photos ... Although I have no medical training, I had the great privilege of watching a volunteer doctor from Cameroon perform cataract operations with great dexterity and care (one every 15 minutes) and even greater excitement when I happened to be at the birth of a healthy baby girl! Other members of our team were involved in building a piggery and a chicken coop, organising the school library, literacy lessons, assessing children with disabilites with the hope of establishing a special needs class in 2009, vaccination days, hospital and medical clinic visits. Together, I think we were able to meet our goal of helping to "make dreams real" for these wonderful people in Mando village. We made many friends and we will never forget the warm and close relationships we developed with individuals we worked with - both Australian Rotarians on the team, and the local people in Mando. As one of our team summed up " It is a privilege to help this community - a proud and dignified people" . This is just a tiny glimpse of what we did - I wish I could post all my photos!






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

#SeptTextileLove26 Day11

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day11 ‘Language’ …when symbols in stitch say more than words … my wonderful  Wednesday Makers group  has undertaken a community peace project ‘Petals for Peace’ - stitched prayer flags depicting flowers , symbolic of peace. . We have stitched many ourselves and other stitchers from all over Australia  have also been contributing as an impactful counter to the hate speech which seems to have pervaded  our world currently - the powerful language of stitch. 
Post a Comment
Read more

#SeptTextileLove Day 10

  #SeptTextileLove #STL26Day10 ‘Low Impact ?’ … today I am highlighting an admirable decision by Newcastle ( NSW Australia) textile art gallery , Timeless Textiles . When you purchase from the gallery shop, the protective wrapping is made from recycled fabric - donated abandoned textiles, repurposed clothing and household linens, and sewing project scraps. Not only is this packaging practice low impact on the environment , it doesn’t cost much and making these bags requires minimal effort and only basic skills. However it has high impact as a thoughtful, aesthetic and sustainable retail practice. What other practices have you noticed retailers are using for a lower impact on the environment?
Post a Comment
Read more

#SeptTextileLove Day 12

  #SeptTextileLove #STL26Day12 ‘Friendship’ … This is a story of friendship based on the love of textiles and fibre art . Gallerist and artist, Anne Kempton and I have been friends for 15 years , meeting when we had both retired from ‘ top’ jobs in a government department and a high school respectively. Neither of us were the retiring types - Anne was establishing the first commercial textile art gallery in Australia and I was looking for a creative direction. We discovered we were both driven by a sense of social justice and community and shared similar artistic aspirations . Since then, we have co- curated exhibitions, collaborated on many projects. supported community art and women’s causes, and grown in our individual artistic expression - Anne includes more stitching in her work and she has had a more painterly influence on mine . Moreover, this friendship is multifaceted, deep and personal and one I value and treasure . Thank you, Anne.  
Post a Comment
Read more