This month we hear from Celia Boyd, Oaktree’s PNG Country Manager:
Recently we went to PNG for 12 days to conduct monitoring and evaluation of Oaktree’s current project in Yangis and also to scope for new potential partners and projects to take on from 2011. This was the first-ever monitoring AND scoping trip to PNG, and an exciting indication that Oaktree is ready to work more deeply in this amazing country.
After much research and meeting with a wide variety of organisations we identified three key issues facing young people in PNG:
• Access to quality formal education
• Youth Unemployment
• Access to education for girls
During our trip we met with several organisations doing some amazing work which addresses these problems. From these, two stood out. City Mission works in Port Moresby to help young men and boys who are unemployed, homeless, have little or no family support, and/or are involved in criminal activities to turn their lives around. They are provided with a safe environment in which to stay for up to 18 months and learn a variety skills in basic vocational training, such as literacy, farm management, carpentry and hospitality. City Mission assists them through this training program to develop and even to find casual and full-time employment in Port Moresby. Although this program is extremely successful for male youth, there is not yet a program available for women; which is why Oaktree is interested in helping City Mission to create one. This program will provide basic training in areas such as literacy, basic book keeping, secretarial skills, sewing, computer literacy and more to up to 100 women per year. Oaktree therefore has the opportunity to help City Mission to change the lives of between 400 – 600 young people per year, over three years, in PNG.
Another potential project is one proposed by the Madang Provincial Youth Council. Madang is a rural province in PNG made up of hundreds of villages and a larger town. The Youth Council seeks to provide training for a number of young people throughout Madang and equip them with leadership skills, so that they can pass this training on to their peers. Training will subjects such as basic business management and financial literacy. These young people will also be assisted in setting up village-level youth councils throughout Madang, so that youth may have representation at village and provincial government level. The PNG Government has also pledged a significant amount of money to provide unemployed young people and their families with the opportunity to access a micro-credit scheme so that they can set up small businesses.
Obviously both of these organisations are doing fantastic work. But which is the potential partner for Oaktree? How can we have the deepest impact possible; through basic vocational training and assistance in finding employment for at-risk young men and women in Port Moresby, or through providing training for youth and setting up village-level youth councils throughout Madang, so that youth can potentially have greater opportunities and representation at government level? Do we look at the potential numbers of people who will be impacted, or the depth to which their lives will be changed? Do we want to be more involved in individuals, or do we want to play a part in impacting upon provincial government? And which is possibly more of a risk for us to take on?
Share your thoughts. Have your say in the future of Oaktree’s work in PNG!
Hey guys,
welcome home from PNG!
I was wondering; what do you see as the challenges in creating a women’s program with City Mission? Given they have specialised working with young boys, what kind of training and processes do you see needed to develop that specialisation for young women?
hey oaktree,
Whilst both projects seem very worthwhile I think the most tangible differences would be seen by working with city mission in POM
In the case of PNG similar to timor unemployment seems to be a huge issue and working with people in POM to help them explore their vocational potential seems like the best use of oaktrees money.
Plus PoM can be a pretty scary place sometimes so creating opportunities for young people has multiple benefits for society in general.
hope that helps
Eric
Hi Eric,
thank you for your comment, that definitely does help. I agree that if we want to see a real and evident change then working with unemployed youth in Port Moresby would help us to make a deeper impact. The main thing we noticed there was that there doesn’t seem to be a lack of jobs; rather, a lack of skills required to find employment. Formal education would of course be extremely valuable in tackling this, however what about those young, uneducated people already living on the streets who are turning to crime in order to survive?
The great thing about City Mission is that not only do they provide training in basic education, life skills and vocational training, but this is all done in a safe and secure environment away from the temptations of things such as drugs and alcohol. The beneficiaries are also supported in finding employment, creating a real link between the training and jobs. This is rare among NGOs and something which I think make this program very worthwhile in supporting.
Hi Celia,
Whilst I agree with Eric in the above comment.
I was thinking that with regard to the madang based project option that one of the strengths of this project is that the knowledge and information filters through to communities not just to the people who are a part of the training or become a part of the youth council
I don’t know very much about Madang though. Is youth participation something with is lacking in the province?
And should Oaktree choose the Madang project how will you ensure that young women are involved as much as young women? I would imagine that a youth council position might be something more available to young men than to young women.
thanks
Bill
Hi Bill,
The issue of women’s involvement is definitely a major one for the Madang project. Unfortunately there is already much more participation from males than females, however there is definitely room for women to become more involved, and I believe that the Youth Council will seek to raise awareness about gender equality through its training workshops.
Youth participation is definitely a problem in Madang, as in all of PNG. Although youth councils do technically exist in some areas (although they are supposed to exist in all provinces and at village levels) they are usually made up of older adult men who are expected to represent the youth population. This obviously is not ideal and means that young people are not nearly as involved as they should be.
The main point about the Madang Provincial Youth Council project is that it could have a huge and fantastic impact if carried out properly; however, the question remains as to how involved we want Oaktree to become in government activities, even at a provincial level. Is this really Oaktree’s place… particularly right before an election year, which is historically a time of tension within this country?
Starting a youth council in madang province seems like a great idea but how realistic would it be considering that its a very rural area and the ability for young people to get from village to village would be limited (id imagine it would take many days to walk to madang for alot of villagers) ?
Hi Pam,
Thank you for raising this very realistic issue – yes, Madang is a rural area and it will definitely be difficult to roll out such a huge project to all wards within the province. It is an ambitious project for sure, which also raises the question of how risky it would be for Oaktree to support.
The idea is that about 200 young people are trained in leadership and vocational training such as basic business management and financial literacy. They would then go out to the rural areas and pass this training on to their peers. The trained youth would be assisted in setting us village-level ward youth councils which would become representatives for the youth in that area and which would also have the opportunity to contribute to the Provincial Youth Council. If you think that this project is seeking to ultimately set up over 500 ward youth councils across the province, this is an extremely large-scale program.
It would also be a difficult project for us to conduct monitoring and evaluation on. This is imperative to all our projects (and half the reason we recently travelled to PNG, to conduct M&E on our current project in Enga Province) so having someone on the fround who is capable of carrying out adequate and extensive monitoring and reporting would be very important. Although we do currently work in Yangis, which is extremely remote and difficult to get to, this is just one location; carrying out such monitoring over an entire province would be impossible for Oaktree and we would therefore be totally reliant on Madang’s own monitoring reports.
I think the Madang Project is ambitious and would push Oaktree’s resources to the limit. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing – as the organisation says, we are young and idealistic. The project has the potential to have a broad and deep impact on the province.
What do the Youth Councils do once they are set up? Do they continue to train other young people, or simply make sure youth issues are on the agenda for higher level councils? Like you’ve said previously, it will be a hard project to assess the success of.
If we come up with an innovative way to monitor the project, I think it’s feasible, and potentially more ground-breaking than the other, safer option.
Hi Rob,
thanks for your comment! I agree that ambition is not necessarily a bad thing – in fact it can be a great thing. However, in this case ambition may also equal to risky. We would need to determine whether the large sum of money being proposed is worth the risk – and if it could be used more effectively in other areas or on a different project.
Once the youth councils are set up their main aim is to continue to provide training workshops for young people, represent youth at village-level and at provincial government level, and also assist with the management of a micro-credit scheme aimed at young people and their families, which will be funded by the government.
I don’t doubt that this project would be a very worthwhile one, and something which has the potential to make quite a large difference. However, I wonder whether it is Oaktree’s place to take this on. Considering we prefer not to work directly with government, perhaps this is something larger organisations or agencies, which have the capacity to monitor such large-scale programs, should fund instead.
Hi.
In terms of concrete impacts. I think that the Port Moresby City Mission is much of a safer bet. It is already up and running and therefore would have ironed out a lot of the teething problems that such a project is bound to encounter in the first few years.
The Madang project sounds very ambitious and definitely has great potential but I think it’s too risky if it’s carried out under an unstable government (who could potentially shut down a project at any moment). “Youth participation is definitely a problem in Madang” which suggests a cultural barrier (traditional or modern) that will have to be overcome in order to avoid retention problems. Ultimately, this project sounds too risky and ambiguous in my view.
Can you cite any similar projects to the Madang one that have proved successful (Aside from Oaktree ; )
Regards.
Ollie.
Hi Ollie,
the main issue we have identified with this project is that it is extremely ambitious and heavily tied in with government. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however it can be especially unstable before and during an election year – which is historically an unstable time in Papua New Guinea.
I do not know of any similar successful projects which has been carried out so extensively and therefore am uncertain as to the feasibility of this program. Although it would be amazing if successful, I am not sure how realistic it is. This provides a stark contrast to that provided by City Mission, which already holds a high success rate and has an impressive reputation. Not only am I much more confident in the feasibility of the City Mission project, I believe that it will have a deeper impact.
I feel the important question here is whether Oaktree wants to impact upon as many people as possible, in even a small way, or if we want to impact upon a smaller group but change their lives in a real, deep and meaningful way.
Hey Celia
Awesome work on finding these projects, I think they both sound great!
The opportunity for Oaktree to support a project for young women in Port Moresby really excites me. We know that young women are often pushed into prostitution and other forms of exploitative labour, when they are poor and have no other income for their family. Could you tell us what the issues specific to young women are in Port Moresby?
If Oaktree would have the opportunity to provide/support an alternative to prostitution and other forms of exploitative work for women in PNG – this project would definitely get my vote!
Thanks Grace!
Supporting women is absolutely a major priority for women in PNG. There is a massive inequality between men and women there, in both rural and urban areas. The main issues are probably lack of access to education for girls and women – families usually put their boys first when it comes to sending children to school, particularly if they don’t have the money to send them all (school is not free in PNG). From village level right up to government women are very discriminated against and gender inequality is a cross-cutting issue across development there.
Violence against women is also a major issue. Domestic violence is frighteningly common in PNG and there is a real ‘culture of violence’. Even things such as access to basic health services have a much more negative affect on women than men, and things such as maternal mortality rates are extremely high.
In short, women need help in PNG. The exciting thing about the City Mission project is that until now this organisation has had an educational and training focus on men, whilst working with women in more of a crisis sense. However, with Oaktree’s help, they are looking to create a new program for women, using similar training systems as in the already very successful men’s program. As I already mentioned, access to education is a major problem for girls. These women will have very little education and training, so this will be an amazing opportunity for them to not only access basic education but to be trained in areas which will help them gain employment and an income. Education and employment leads to empowerment, and in an environment in which women are so often discriminated and even abused, self-confidence and self empowerment are so important.