PNG artists feature at international arts show in Sydney

By ALEXANDER RHEENEY in Sydney

The Maketi Ples art exhibition in Sydney, Australia has been hailed as a success with artists thankful for the exposure that the annual event continues to give to talented Pacific islanders.

 Papua New Guinea’s Goroka-based artist Florence Jaukae, 39, said the exhibition hosted by the Pacific Islands Trade and Investment Commission (PITIC) in Sydney was a privilege for Pacific island artists.

Goroka-based bilum dress guru Florence Jaukae standing next to an Australian model wearing one of her products which was on display at the Maketi Ples art exhibition in Sydney, Australia. Picture by ALEXANDER RHEENEY

“We are very privileged to have this kind of exhibition, especially from an organisation (PITIC) that gives us the opportunity to make an income from what we do back in our home countries.

 “It is a new kind of experience for us, where we are mostly based back home in our countries, but this exhibition has changed that for us,” she said.

 Port Moresby-based artist Jeffry Feeger, who gave a live demonstration during the exhibition last Friday, said Maketi Ples was a starting point for exposure to Pacific islands’ contemporary art and the region’s artists.

Port Moresby-based artist Jeffry Feeger with the portrait he painted in three hours as part of the live demonstration last Friday night at the Maketi Ples art exhibition in Sydney, Australia. Picture by ALEXANDER RHEENEY

“It (Maketi Ples) encompasses the crafts world like bilum weaving and various different crafts as well,” he said.

 “These are crafts don’t have prominence and good exposure in Australia so they (PITIC) have established a platform for that.

 “This is the second year now that it is running, it is improving.

 “I think it is getting more coverage and you know it is just about penetrating the minds of people here.”

 This year’s exhibition featured the work of 20 artists from PNG: Martin Morububuna, Laben Sakale, Vinz Blaq, Jimmy Amamao, Florence Jaukae, Goroka Bilum Weavers Cooperative, Agnes Posanai, Henry Iyaro and Bob Iyalu); Cook Islands: Kay George and Loretta Reynolds; Tonga: Tupe Langi, Sione Maileseni, Tevita Latu and Vola Tuimela’atu; Federated States of Micronesia: Yvonne Neth; Fiji: Abraham Langi and Tessa Miller; and Solomon Islands: Ralph Ako and Luke Lua.

 PITIC creative arts manager, who coordinated the art exhibition, said they received positive feedback from visitors as well as art collectors.

 “It has been absolutely great,” she said.

 “My greatest fear as the coordinator was that could we match last year’s event, and some of the comments that came to me on the opening night were that we have kicked it up another level.

 “That Maketi Ples is just going up and rising.”

 The Maketi Ples art exhibition opened at Sydney’s Global Gallery last month and ended today and is an initiative of the PITIC.

Australian council throws a cloud computing lifeline to Kokopo

Cloud computing is providing the life-changing link between a remote provincial capital in Papua New Guinea and its sister city of Mt Barker, on the eastern fringes of Adelaide, South Australia.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).

Cloud Computing is an internet-based computer network, where a resource, software and applications are shared to be utilised by other computers connecting to it. This is a whole new form of computing concept. Why is this novel concept referred to as cloud computing? It is because the internet is often visualised as a big cloud consisting of a large network of computers connected to each other.

Mt Barker District Council is mentoring the City of Kokopo in corporate governance and financial systems, a relationship brokered by the Commonwealth Local Government Forum and funded by AusAID.

The assistance includes helping Kokopo stay financial by collecting rates and improve its garbage collection services to prevent serious disease in the local population.

A city of 26,000-plus, Kokopo has been the administrative centre for the island of East New Britain, between the Bismarck and Solomon seas, since volcanoes devastated neighbouring Rabaul in 1994.

The capital is 1,000km north-east of Port Moresby and one of the most-isolated cities in PNG.

It’s solely reliant on wireless broadband for its Internet connection to the outside world. 

“When we were looking at working with Kokopo in late 2011, we realised the difficulties of setting up and supporting an on-premise server,” said Mt Barker general manager corporate services, David Peters.

“Copper wire doesn’t last long in PNG before people dig it up to sell. PCs are riddled with viruses.

“Conditions are basic and the power supply often drops out. Local IT support that doesn’t charge astronomically is non-existent. “

Mt Barker is helping bring the council’s failed rate collection system up to speed after Kokopo was financially bailed out by the PNG government. 

“The cost and time of a week or more involved in travelling to and from PNG meant the project would have failed without a different approach.”

David spoke to Mt Barker’s ICT partner, Telstra, which suggested using its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) portal, Telstra T-Suite®, to purchase Microsoft® Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud productivity and collaboration solution.

 Mt Barker bought 15 Office 365 seats, giving key staff at both councils access to the Microsoft products of Office Professional, SharePoint Online, Lync and Exchange Online, in always-up-to-date cloud versions and for a predictable monthly subscription.

“After confirming internet access suitable to connect to Microsoft SharePoint Online during the trial of Office 365 using a wireless connection in PNG, we moved forward with provisioning of suitable hardware and infrastructure,” David said.

“We are now able to communicate regularly using voice calls, chat, video calls and sharing computers all through Microsoft Lync between Australia and PNG. We moved to implementing this in December 2011.

“Office 365 has enabled us to communicate really well. We can chat over videoconferencing and take control of their PC to get things done.

“Everything’s shared and synchronised between Kokopo’s desktop and the cloud so if the Internet goes down, they can keep working off the desktop.”

Mt Barker’s next project is rolling out desktops connected to Office 365 for the rest of the staff to help bring Kokopo’s garbage collection service up-to-speed, preventing refuse leaking into the water table and causing disease. 

“You can’t put a dollar value on what that’s doing to improve life for the local community,” David said.

“But without cloud computing, the project wouldn’t have happened.

“We’re now at the point where another C\council would like to be brought into this project.  The ICT infrastructure is easy to replicate and rollout, so the work to do that will be miniscule compared to what it will provide.” 

David said one of the key features of Office 365 was the ability to scale up quickly and easily.

“There are people who know Papua New Guinea well that see this partnership as a model that could really take their technological needs to the next level without having to spend millions of dollars,” David said.

United Nations congratulates PNG winner of climate change contest

The United Nations (UN) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) would like to congratulate Biliso Osake from Goroka, who has won first prize in the Pacific Category of the Asia-Pacific Cartoon Contest.

Osake has won US$1,000 and his cartoon will be portrayed on international websites as well as international exhibitions and events related to Human Development and Climate Change.

Biliso Osake's prize-winning cartoon

 The theme of the contest was Climate Change in Asia-Pacific, A People’s Perspective and Osake’s cartoon was selected as the winner by an international panel of experts.

“Biliso’s cartoon is creative, funny, and an excellent portrayal of the impact climate change is beginning to have on thousands of people in the Pacific.

“This is a lived reality for many people in the region, and Biliso’s cartoon gets to the heart of the issue.

“We are extremely proud that a Papua New Guinean has won and is representing the Pacific on such an issue,” remarked UN resident coordinator, David McLachlan-Karr.

Osake has previously worked with the UN in PNG on cartoons promoting human rights to the general PNG public.

The objective of contest (www.cartooncontestasiapacific.com) was to support advocacy that brings people to the centre of climate change and human development debates.

The contest encouraged people from Asia-Pacific developing countries to portray issues of concern related to climate change in the region from a people’s perspective.

  Climate change presents a major development challenge to sustainable livelihoods as it threatens to undermine international, national, and community efforts to combat poverty, and exacerbates already existing inequalities between and within countries.

The contest was co-organised by the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Centre and the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

New Zealand graduate uses flowers to help PNG women

By JUDITH LACY of Fairfax NZ News

Taro and exotic flowers sound like the stuff of tropical holidays, but for New Zealander Jessica Bensemann, they are – she hopes – the means of improving life for Papau New Guinean women.

 Bensemann, who has just finished her master of agricommerce at Massey University, leaves at the end of the month to spend a year in East New Britain, a province of PNG.

The 27-year-old will be a business development adviser for Volunteer Service Abroad, working with the East New Britain Women and Youth in Agriculture Co-operative. 

Branching out…Palmerston North's Jessica Bensemann will spend a year in East New Britain, helping women grow their small agricultural businesses

The co-op has about 50 members who want to develop their small agricultural businesses.

Bensemann had been thinking of working for VSA for a while, and when she saw the position advertised, was keen, since it is a mix of agriculture, business and working with women.

The timing was right to do something that made a difference, she said.

After meeting former VSA volunteers, Bensemann expects she will get as much out of her experience, in terms of skill development and personal growth, as she will provide the women with.

VSA provides accommodation, a living allowance, flights and vaccinations.

Bensemann has already travelled to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia and Vietnam and is excited Papua New Guinea is not on the normal tourist routes.

The East New Britain co-operative is exploring flower-growing opportunities.

The island's tourist industry is growing with visitors attracted by diving around World War II shipwrecks.

Bensemann understands most hotels currently use plastic flowers in their foyers.

The co-operative has taken one experimental shipment of the island's taro to Port Moresby, and exporting the staple to New Zealand is a possibility.

Bensemann sees her role as helping the women to help themselves.

She said she will go with an open mind looking at what the co-operative does, what the women's goals are and how she can help them by drawing on her agribusiness and economic study and work experience.

Bensemann's master's thesis explored the decisions New Zealand farmers make when selling their lamb.

Bensemann grew up on a sheep and beef farm near Nelson.

She has a bachelor of commerce with honours in economics and finance from Victoria University.

In 2006 she joined Beef + Lamb New Zealand, first as a trade policy analyst, then in the data collection team.

That experience made her want to study agriculture, so she started at Massey University in 2010.

VSA is a volunteer organisation that sends Kiwis on long and short-term assignments to share their skills with the people of Melanesia, Polynesia and Timor Leste.

Since it began 50 years ago, 3, 500 people have volunteered their time.

Microbank banks on women’s talent

NATIONWIDE Microbank (NMB) has appointed Gima Kepi as manager women’s banking to honour the country’s female population on International Women’s Day last Thursday, The National reports.
Managing director Tony Westaway said the appointment of Kepi had strengthened their belief that by investing in women, a multiplier effect was provided on the well-being of their households and communities.

Gima Kepi is congratulated by Tony Westawayon International Women's Day last Thursday

“We believe that banking on women is good business and is also good for long-term sustainable development,” he said.
“There is significant unfulfilled demand from women for financial services.
“But lending with women or providing suitable products is only part of the story.
“We need the wider community to understand that women are key contributors to national economic growth.”
Westaway said they needed to train their bank staff in gender sensitivity and serving women’s business needs.
“And we need to train women in business management, confidence building and networking.”
Kepi, from Central, had vast experience in both the private and public sectors in administration and human resources.
NMB had in recent times conducted workshops with the Women’s Advisory Centre of Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Port Moresby.
Kepi would not only facilitate these workshops, but would also be tasked to drive women’s programmes in connection with “mobile money” and micro-insurance.
Westaway said the appointment of Kepi was strategic and could not have come at a better time for NMB.
Through the support of New Zealand Aid (NewZAID), Women’s World Banking (WWB) had this week announced it would work with NMB to conduct a gender baseline study with their client base, which in turn would be used to develop products and strategies that were most effective in reaching and impacting on women.
Over the past 15 years, WWB had conducted research with micro-finance Institutions in over 15 countries.
Its work focused mainly on how microfinance products such as savings, credit and micro-insurance, and the service delivery mechanism, could be designed to best serve the needs of the target population, in particular low income women.
“For NMB to continue growing, we need to develop a deeper understanding of our customers’ lives and how we can best serve their needs,” Westaway said.
 “In recent gender studies overseas, it had been found that when financial services for poor women are targeted to address gender inequities, the ability of these women to lift their families out of poverty is unstoppable.”