Quarterly Newsletter, 2nd Edition

June 30th 2010 - Quarterly Newšletter, 2nd Edition

Digicel PNG Foundation’s first quarter of the third year of operations started with a festive April month seeing the launches of four new double classrooms. The launches saw a lot of colorful traditional style PNG celebrations from all over the country from the Highlands to the coastal provinces and many happy faces! On the other hand there were more serious activities undertaken as the capital city of Port Moresby was hit by a deadly Cholera outbreak in the month of May and June. Digicel staff and senior management were quickly mobilized through Digicel Foundation’s “Adopt a CLC Programme” to organize a Cholera awareness drive though visits to their department’s adopted Community Learning Centre. All Port Moresby based CLC’s, a total of 15, most of which are situated in the most impoverished areas in the city with little or no access to clean water, were visited over a 2 week period whereby the Digicel staff raised awareness about prevention measures to take against Cholera. Over the last week of June we kicked off another exciting new project together with our partners, the Port Moresby South Preschool Association and the Foursquare Church: the training of 57 volunteer teachers from our 15 Community Learning Centres. The teacher training is the beginning of a one year pilot learning programme, ”Isi Learning Programme”, that has been developed by Digicel Foundation partner, Foursquare Church, and is aimed towards the marginalized children from the squatter settlements of the city. In PNG only 50% of school aged children actually attend primary school leaving many children illiterate giving them a very bleak outlook for their future lives. The objective of this innovative programme is to teach these children (mostly between ages of 7 and 12 years) basic numeracy and literacy skills to the level required for access into grade 3 (first grade of primary school in PNG). All 57 CLC teachers are currently following teacher training and will be monitored and mentored on a continuous basis over the following 12 month period whereby both the performance of the teachers as well as the students will be measured.