May 21st 2009 - Community Learning Centre for the Busu Community in partnership with Foursquare Church in Lae, Morobe Province

Lae: Today the Digicel Foundation launched their 19th Community Learning Centre (CLC) in partnership with Foursquare Church on the Busu Road in Lae.

The Digicel Foundation strives to support projects that provide opportunities that will inspire and build positive energy in its citizens, which will in turn lead to stronger, self sufficient communities. The Community Learning Centre in the Busu Community is the realization of Digicel Foundation’s vision to make a difference and play a positive role in peoples lives in PNG.

The Foursquare Church on Busu Road is a young church only established 18 months ago. The church provides food, shelter and support for homeless women, children and youth. The church addresses issues in the community such as HIV/Aids, the rising prostitution and crime and domestic violence through spiritual and physical care as well as through counseling and empowerment. The Foursquare Church has set up basic life skills training for the women and youth to teach them skills such as cooking, sewing and carpentry so that they can become self sufficient and move on in life. The Digicel Foundation recognized the support the church are giving the community with little to no funding available.

The Community Learning Centre funded by the Foundation will be used as a community resource centre for skilled based training for the homeless women and youth. It also contains more than 100 childrens books donated by Hope Worldwide PNG as well as some basic furniture donated by Gondi Hardware. There are also plans to set up adult literacy training and a pre-school for the many children not attending school in the surrounding Busu Community of at least 5,000 people.

For the Digicel Foundation this is only the beginning as it plans on rolling out a total of 25 CLC’s in PNG by the end of May 2009. Another 25 CLC’s are planned to be rolled out in the following 12 months bringing the total to 50 CLC’s launched in PNG.