31 Mar 2004

Save the children launches new prohject in PNG's East Sepik province

10:44 am on 31 March 2004

The NGO, Save the Children, with support from the New Zealand aid agency, NZAID, today launches the second stage of a health and education programme catering for tens of thousands of Papua New Guineans.

In East Sepik Province, Save the Children has for several years been training and supporting local women to provide medical care to people in their communities.

Each year these Village Health Volunteers provide eighty thousand consultations and attend over 600 births in more than 200 villages.

Today the project is to be integrated into the activities of the Church Health Service and the Provincial Government's Division of Health, meaning full health services for around two hundred thousand people.

NZAID is providing around 650 thousand US dollars annually for the project.

It represents about ten percent of New Zealand's donor assistance to PNG.