Transcript
COLIN PAKE: Statistics and data show that it is a big issue in our country and it is still growing. We have not confirmed actually how many children on the street and out of school.
JAMIE TAHANA: While you don't know the actual figure of children out of school from your work - it is a lot of children.
CP: It is a lot of children, like in Moresby alone we have about 5000-plus homeless or street kids and this is part of a group that is out of school and for the last 5-10 years it keeps on growing because of people migrating into the city and [they] go to get a better life in the city, but unfortunately their parents died - or some economic situation which each family cannot afford to send a child to school, especially in the city, and as a result the kids have to survive - that's all.
JT: How are these children struggling to get to school or can't afford to get to school, isn't education meant to be free and accessible, especially in the capital?
CP: Yeah it is. It is accessible within the city boundaries, but the problem is really the economic conditions and basically unemployed parents who are just living in a settlement. You know, they couldn't even afford to buy a uniform and to sustain a child to complete a primary education is a big challenge in the city.
JT: You've come up with this idea of mobile schools or clinics, how does that work?
CP: I think within the community we see that there are more kids out there on the street or in the settlement. They don’t go to school so basically their parents or relatives cannot afford to buy school uniforms, stationary or lunch. So I think that we said: 'we have to do something.' So my team, we have been working for the last two years and we came up with this idea of mobile education which is to go where the children are. It's like teaching them basic literacy, basic numeracy. One of our target areas now is we are putting that school in the biggest dump in the city which is Baruni dump and just imagine the population there, especially the truant population - there are about 200-plus children living around this. We don't want to see them constantly going around scavenging things and we started introducing the mobile education and we have the mobile classroom and we set up a camp and we have a mobile bus that just goes with our teachers and our materials education. And it's Monday to Friday. So its a two year pilot project and the need is so big that we cannot reach the entire city.
JT: But for now, in the north-west there are 200 children living at this dump in north-west Port Moresby?
CP: Yes, we've got about 200-plus kids registered already to us at the school... We were so amazed in the beginning the turnout would be so bad, we were not expecting this but as the school continues, we were there with our teachers and staff and the numbers just keep on growing. New kids are coming to join teachers have said "oh, I think we should put up a cut-off mark where we just stop getting everyone from coming to our school". If that happens, that tells us, you can just imagine.
JT: So in the morning you've got all your materials in a van, you drive up, you set up a tent then the children from around the settlement will come over learn their maths or something?
CP: Yeah, that's right. We've got two more places we are targeting in the north-west, the dump area and Gerhu which is about 2kms away. From eight o’clock until 11 o’clock it is at Gerhu, then from 1 o’clock to 3 o’clock it is at the dump area. So we are running two-day classes for these children.
JT: How are the children finding it?
CP: Oh the children just enjoy it. We are teaching them the basic numeracy and literacy - we are preparing these kids so that within in a year, or two, they will be able to read and write - that's our aim. As soon as we can make a child read or write that's it. We try to work in ways [so that] our long-term plan is ...whichever kids we identify have the potential, they are going to continue, we will integrate them into the main education system.
JT: You're a small NGO, but do you hope that you'll be one able to spread it across Port Moresby or to the highlands, or across PNG?
CP: In that way we also try to tell them that who saves you from this environment. It's about telling about better chances they will have in the future due to education, because their parents have lived there for ages, and they cannot just live the same life. For example, living in this dump, you know just going into the dump all of their life. They were born and grow up in an environment they think that 'wow this is the life we are here for' - no it's not that. It's about bringing change into the community and letting them see something different.