Call on ABG to create opportunities for Students

Leonard Fong Roka

The Divine Word University’s Department of PNG Studies & International Relations requires its Third Year students to at least undergo part-time job exposure over the break and at the beginning of their Forth Year; they have to provide the Department with a certification of their experience to the Department for assessment and valuation of the student.

To this a Bougainvillean student from Lonahan village on Buka in PNG Studies & International Relations department, Ancitha Semoso (pictured), is sending email after email with her letter of interest and references attached to offices in Buka with hope to secure a position.

‘I did send emails to government departments of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and NGOs on Buka,’ she told me, ‘but nobody is responding that positively to me. I hate that attitude of ignorance by a Bougainville on a Bougainville.’

She did write to other organizations in Port Moresby for the part-time jobs opportunity that is an academic requirement for her. A few did accept her interest but suggested that they won’t provide her with accommodation. Thus she is sad and looks nowhere but want positive answers from Bougainville.

‘I am a Bougainvillean; I am the future of my island,’ the 23 year old said frustratingly. ‘And those old folks in the Bougainville government need to give me a space to gain practical experience instead of being overloaded with theories that otherwise will not help me out in the future.’

She emphasizes that one Bougainville problem is that the ABG is not investing more on its future human resource.

‘Bougainville is on a political journey,’ she told me, ‘and that needs us the young generation to be nurtured now and be prepared to take on the challenges of leading our Bougainville after the scheduled referendum on independence that is some three years away.

‘We will vote for independence but is our ABG grooming us to take on the responsibilities of leading our own country?’

Miss Semoso had written to the ABG parliamentary services; she had written to the Bougainville administration and the World Vision, but till now she is waiting to be positively responded upon by the various government bodies and NGOs.

‘When I do not secure a part-time job outside of Bougainville,’ she said, ‘I won’t be hurt. But when the organizations I wrote to on Bougainville, where I call home, I am really sad. I am asking, ‘Are our leaders on Bougainville really dedicated to freeing Bougainville based on the facts or reasons that our people had fought and died for since 1988?’’

Ancitha Semoso wants Bougainville to have programs those students in tertiary institutions outside Bougainville must be subjected to every year when they return home.