Articlel #2 First of all; John, it is good to hear that you have recovered from your sick and doing well! Keep up with good health because Koare need motivational people like you to drive the initiative for a common good! Now, according to my view, below are some Key steps to tie up whole of Koare Sub-LLG into one basket in order to gain trust/confidence from the authorities. I call this "the fundamental development concept (FDC)". Selected FDCs will be contained in the KRDA Profile. The profile, together with relevant proposals will than be used as a marketing tool to seek for development assistances. The fundamental development concepts: - Committee members - appoint a respectable representative per Council Ward (CW) as a committee member to the KRDA. Councilors can be councilors. The committee members must be separate persons who can be able to read and write. The committees and the councilors can than work together as a team within their own CWs to deal with any ground works that will than incorporate into the KRDA, such as collecting population census (as stated in # 2).
- Population census – data per CW to be collected by the committee member and the councilor with assistance from their people; this includes taking account of every child born/marriage/death/public servants/various church workers/age. The census can be conducted in order of; family, tribe and clan. Public servants and various church workers can come under separate category. I believe this step is important because any major development dialogues can be based on the number of factual population of Koare. [I will create a template - manual registration form - and make it available for all KKKs to discuss]
- Population census administration – the total population census is to be registered and administered by the KRDA chairperson, treasurer and secretary or appointed personnel. [Meanwhile, can someone please make available the total council wards of Koare and the respective clans/tribe that come under? Maybe, Brian can do this responsibility when he goes home in Nov?]
- Reports on existing services - compile individual reports on existing government services, church run services and existing community projects. Such as; roads, health, education, the water supply within Koare station (is it still operating ok?), the Waluanda airstrip, Koare – Tindua road association, the newly celebrated Koare Catholic Parish (Mapeanda), Waluanda Primary, Walu School, Kerara School, Mapeanda School, what do this other schools do for water apart from Koare & Mapeanda schools?….etc [If I am missing out on any other services & projects etc.. please, make them available if known by any of you KKKs. Again, Brian, please get more data (details about school classrooms, # of teachers, an estimate # of students, status on the water supplies, # of health staff-their titles, conditions of staff houses, condition of the health centre, and etc, etc……….) on these services and make them available. Anda kogono apo pea pilirea na rayome sagio tamare-e-e-e. .I will start drafting the reports as I am not engaged in any personal activities at this stage. The reports will than form part of the relevant development proposals].
- Development Strategies – what do we want the KRDA to achieve, in terms of short / medium / long term development perspectives. [I believe John is working on this]
- Immediate development needs - identify the immediate needs, such as roads & bridges, health, water supply for schools, and etc….. in order to roll out appeals.
- Active members of the communities - the ward committee members and councilors are to be active participants. Therefore, they will work side by side to outreach to the people of respective wards what the KRDA concept is all about. So that everyone is at the same wavelength to consume information and to participate in the KRDA development needs and requirements.
- Commercial and agricultural activities - KRDA to initiate agricultural activities within each CW or selected areas, administered according to the KRDA business model. [refer to my views on this matter on the concluding message "food for thought"].
- Food, nutrition & healthy living - in time, mentor our people the health benefits about growing and consuming various foods (the day to day food that our people have back home).
- Church – this is an important part of all of our lives. As such, pray, peace and unity must be central to all of these tasks. The various churches back home must be aware of the initiative of the KRDA. Hence, the association would require their support through prayers for the overall concept of KRDA, as much as KRDA will support them when the time is right.
Conclusively, here is a food for thought (lets think outside of the box and get our brains working): Like I've mentioned in my first article; government or funding agencies will only assist to build proper or sealed roads for remote places such as Koare, if there are substantial amount of commercial or agricultural activities taking place. Yes we can cry for help to the authorities and build schools, health services and etc…. but, these services will always deteriorate when authorities are not fully committed as they suppose to. So, as a positive outlook we must also start thinking about "initiating KRDA's own projects to raise funds for itself". The Koare people under the association can practically work off the ground and manage our own affairs, at least to come out of the extreme poverty. As educated ones let us don't be skeptic about the KRDA conversations. Lets burry the cynicism mentality and support this initiative in anyways each one of us can, because no outsiders will feel sorry for Koare, and will come develop our place. Just remember, people have the power to change anything - it won't be our poor people in the villages – it is those of us who are engaged in this conversation right now. So, let us all change our attitudes and work together. Lets also remember that SHP is the richest province in PNG which majority of the country's revenue is derived from. What initiatives are the Southern Highlander's embarking on to take advantage of the so called multi billion Kina gas/oil projects? Having said that, we have to explore ideas and come up with practical ways that will involve every council ward to participate in whatever revenue generating projects that KRDA may embark on. "To achieve this concept we will need good Samaritans to donate land whilst the land remain the owners property (under conditions), money (every working and willing KKKs to donate to KRDA fund) and time". The only commercial activity we can anticipate on at this stage is agricultural produce. There is a huge market out there at our doorstep to take advantage of. Here are couple of examples to put the notion of self-help into perspective to learn from; ENB provincial govt owns most businesses in its province and elsewhere, such as the than Andersons Foodland supermarkets which were sold to SVS group of companies in 2007/08, East New Britain palm oil, and others I may not be aware of; Wamp Nga group of companies in Hagen (owned by 7 LLGs within/around hgn city). Their businesses are successful because they are operated by smart/intelligent people. I will prior discuss more on the view of agricultural venture with John Rombo and publicize collective ideas in due course for the KKKs inputs. Constructive comments are welcome! Motto: "RAYOME RU MINASA" End of article |
