Chimbu students and academics help their people

By MALUM NALU

People of Chimbu province will again benefit from an educational awareness campaign carried out by students and academics of the province.

Chimbu Governor Fr John Garia (left) and acting secretary for National Planning and Monitoring, Dr Peter Ga’Allah Kora at the launching of this year’s Project 21 last Thursday.

The campaign, called Project 21, was started by former University of PNG academic and now acting secretary for National Planning and Monitoring, Dr Peter Ga’Allah Kora, last year to help curb issues that affected the community.

He has already garnered the support of Chimbu Governor Fr John Garia to continue the campaign this year.

It sets the platform and creates an avenue for Chimbu students and professionals to assist the community with their relevant knowledge and skills in areas such as good governance, law and order, human rights, environmental issues, climate change, resource development issues, culture, education, corruption, effective service deliver, health and HIV/AIDS.

“The idea was to help the Chimbu people,” Dr Kora said during a meeting with Fr Garia last Thursday.

“Chimbu, as you know, has very little natural resources.

“We only have human resources.

“If we continue to do this every year, we will change the mindset of the people.”

Fr Garia said the campaign worked very well last year.

“I support this concept as Chimbu Governor,” he said.

“This is a very good initiative.

“I support anything to do with education and development of human resources.”

This year, Project 21 will run a week-long development seminar in Kundiawa from Dec 5-9, to discuss various issues affecting the province.

Dr Kora has already committed K10, 000 from his department to support the project.

He also announced that a new training centre, to be named after him, would be built to cater for Project 21 and had already been registered with the Investment Promotion Authority.