Leonard Fong Roka Pictures
Since entering Divine Word University, I was awestruck by
the different world that surrounds it. In this institution, they say that
creates the brains of the future Papua New Guinea leaders, there is a world of
the under privilege people that scavenge to survive.
There are two squatter settlements, Guv Store and Wagol that
surrounds our tiny world of intellectuals. Our world is a world of the upcoming
high class PNG citizens that is promising these poor that by 2015, in this
Millennium Development Goals (MDG)s, they will be free from suffering!
We live in residential homes that these PNG citizens can
only dream about; we eat food that these handicapped PNG citizens can hardly
attain in a day; we walk in polish boots and neckties, whilst these poor people
run bare foot beside us.
But these poor, I believe as a Bougainvillean, does it all!
They shoulder the burden of our irresponsibility and laziness.
The poor around the university I attend are mostly from the
two Sepik provinces of PNG. They have left their homes so far away in search of
a better life in the urban Madang settings because their provinces cannot
provide them with the grace of progress.
Does Sir Michael Somare in East Sepik and Hon. Belden Namah
in Sandaun have any idea that, as they grow in fame and wealth, their own
people are not benefitting with them? I wonder.
To make life easier, these people scavenge in the Divine
Word University’s grounds, as the university students most of the times laugh
and ridicule them; sometimes, they chase them blaming them of stealing.
I really hate this culture to happen in my Solomon Island of
Bougainville. Bougainvilleans, be responsible to your life and future, and not
allow our future to have this poverty happening in country, PNG, that holds us
in its claws.
Every Cultural Day, the university I am in hosts every year
in late August, I am saddened so often to watch the moments after the closings.
Shown here, are these poor people that scavenge for
sustenance, after this year (2013) Cultural Day.
Too young to be scavenging
Child Labour in PNG
Woman breaking the rules to survive but she has a reason
They should be in school. PNG has a signiture on children rights in the UN. Are we doing anything to protect these kids?
The poor does it all! DWU lawn cleaned by these poor
The state does nothing for this people in the Madang slums so, in regard to the MDGs, what is the state doing to improve their lives?
They dismantle and bring pieces to the slums to improve their lives
They walk low from the DWU intellectuals
Women suffer to make ends meet. What is the state doing to improve their lives?
Children, what is their role or where is their place with the UN MDGs that will be checked in 2015?
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