Miss Morobe 2006

Kamaliki Vocational Training Centre wins praise

Kamaliki Vocational Training Centre outside Goroka, Eastern Highlands, has over the years won a reputation for the kind of courses that it teaches and the students that it produces.
The products included baby carriers, cookie trays, fruit bowls, laundry baskets, place mats, round baskets, round trays with handles, shopping baskets and trays.
Kamaliki is known for teaching students about downstream processing skills, appropriate technology and arts and crafts.
These skills are very relevant for rural areas as well as to help the students be self-employed or run their own small businesses.
Downstream processing includes honey, jam, marmalade, peanut butter.
Its appropriate technology students are taught how to make such items as drum ovens, mechanised coconut and tapioca scrapers, as well as many other useful items.
Kamaliki's craft shop - which is open tithe public seven days a week - sells canecraft which it buys from local weavers as well as other items produced by trainees of the centre.
The villagers, many of whom are illiterate, find it hard to get find a market for their quality products so they sell them to the Kamaliki Vocational Centre near Goroka.
The centre's stall at the 2006 PNG Coffee Festival in Goroka on May 4, 5and 6 was a major crowd-puller.
Kamaliki, in fact, won a consolation prize from the Small Business Development Corporation for being one of the outstanding small businesses at the festival.
According to instructor, Mrs. MariaNom, Kamaliki was giving a lot of hope to young school leavers.
The school is located about 10km out-side Goroka on the Lae/Madang side ofthe Highlands Highway.
Kamaliki has been actively involved in providing skills training for students from Eastern Highlands as well as other parts of Papua New Guinea.
The school provides eight courses, and every year, more applications are received but only 210 students are selected.
The students who are not selected are encouraged to take up short courses which the school offers.Kamaliki enrolls students with Grade 8,Grade 10 and Grade 12 qualifications with good passes in core subjects.
It runs two-year courses in motor vehicle mechanic, carpentry and joinery, plumbing, auto electrical, computing and business studies, metal fabricating, metal beating and spray painting, and advanced studies in agriculture.
Short courses are run in various skills trade areas to assist people enhance their skills.
The short courses are in motor mechanics, computing and business studies, home economics, carpentry and joinery, sewing machine and repair/maintenance, block laying, advanced skills in agriculture, animal husbandry, cash crops, technical skills, honey production, and farm management.
Further information can be obtained from the address as follows: Kamaliki Vocational Centre, P.O. Box107, Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.Tel: (675) 7322336Fax: (675) 7322336.

Eastern Highlands Cultural centre

The Eastern Highlands Cultural Centre in Kainantu, Eastern Highlands, has been quietly involved in producing quality arts and crafts for the tourism and local markets over the years.
It also buys a lot of works from local artists in and around the Kainantu area.
This is despite the fact that it is basically self-supporting, despite coming under the Eastern Highlands provincial government, and has been doing so for the last 25 years.
“We make pottery, rugs from local sheep skin, as well as do screen printing,” said supervisor Remi Yabuki.
“We also buy arts and crafts from outsiders and resell.”
Business was booming during the 1990s and before that, but has slowed down since because of the law and order problem, which inhibits visitors to Kainantu.
Because of this, Mr Yabuki said they bring their arts and crafts to the PNG Coffee Festival & Trade Fair, Goroka Show and Morobe Show to sell.
Of course, there are the buyers who stop at Kainantu, but these have slowed down to a trickle.
“In the 1990s, and before that, we used to do a lot of sales,” he said.
“But after 2000, because of law and order problems along the road (Highlands Highway), sales have dropped.
“We look at expatriates to do most of our buying.
“We are self-sufficient and do not depend on the provincial government for wages, power bills and others.”
The Eastern Highlands Cultural Centre employs four potters, three wavers, and three sales assistants.
They had reason to be happy at the 2006PNG Coffee Festival & Trade Fair in Goroka, when they received a runner-up prize of K600 from the Small Business Development Corporation for best small business.

Samuel Luguna

Samuel Luguna, 34, from Obweria village in Losuia, Trobriand Islands, Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea, is one of the leading contemporary artists in the country.

He has been painting since 1990 when he enrolled at the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Papua New Guinea.

After graduation in 1993, he was awarded a scholarship for six months to Singapore, where he continued painting.

While in Singapore, he also studied for an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts through the Royal Institute of Technology in Melbourne.

At the end of the programme in Singapore, he staged his first one-man exhibition in that city.

Mr Luguna worked for the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1995 up to 1998.

In 1996, he took part in the 7th South Pacific Festival of Arts in Western Samoa where his works were featured in the 1st South Pacific Contemporary Arts Exhibition.

In 1998, Mr Luguna staged another successful one-man exhibition in Port Moresby.

In 1999, he returned to his beloved Milne Bay Province and taught expressive arts at the Cameron Secondary School in provincial capital, Alotau.

He resigned from teaching at the beginning of this year to pursue painting as a fulltime career.

Earlier this year, the British Museum engaged Mr Luguna to do two paintings in London based on Milne Bay culture, something of which he is very proud of.

“To have some of my works with the British Museum in London and the Frankfurt Museum in Germany gives me a lot of confidence in what I’m doing as a painter,” he says.

Mr Luguna’s works capture the rich culture and traditions of his Milne Bay Province

Contact details:

Samuel Luguna
P.O. Box 907, Alotau, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea
Email: s_luguna@yahoo.com.au

Raymond Manavi

Raymond Manavi, 34, from Kaminabit village in the Angoram area of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, describes himself as a “struggling artist”.

“I mainly produce tribal extracts based on traditional art,” he says.

“I’ve been painting since 1992.

“I mainly display my works at the Windjammer Hotel in Wewak.

“If there are buyers, I make money, if not, I go home empty-handed.

“Sales, otherwise, are very poor.

“I’m one of the poor artists of Wewak town.

“I have no other job, apart from painting.

“I really want to establish a market for my paintings.”

Mr Manavi’s father was a master carver at Passam National High School outside Wewak, with all his children following his steps as artists.