Papua New Guinea

Yangis Community School

Where We Work?

Oaktree and the Baptist Union are working together in the Yangis community of the highland provinces of Enga. The area suffers from a lack of access to quality education at any level, due to the challenging geography and low literacy levels. The infrastructure for education, transport and communications is very poor, making service delivery very difficult. Yangis is particularly isolated, accessible only by two days walk or light aircraft. This limits its capacity for trade, leading to limited interaction with other communities and minimal opportunities for economic growth.

Who we work with?

Oaktree works in conjunction with the Papua New Guinea Baptist Union (BUPNG), an organisation that holds strong ties with the Papua New Guinea community and has a long and prosperous history in development work. Together with the Baptist Union, Oaktree works alongside the Yangis community to develop and manage the re-establishment of the Yangis community school.

What are we doing?

Though the government-run Yangis Community School has the capacity to teach 400 students, it has been un-staffed and therefore non-operational since 1999. Due to cultural isolation, teachers from other tribes would quickly leave Yangis. The closure of the school has created an ongoing obstacle to Yangis community members, preventing the children from obtaining an education and therefore obstructing local economic or political development.

Oaktree and the Baptist Union have provided eight teacher training scholarships to local Yangis people. Two out of the eight have completed their nationally accredited teaching qualifications after two years at a Madang institution, and have recently returned to Yangis. The remaining six students will return to Yangis at the end of 2010. The scholarship recipients have signed a contract committing them to working for five years in Yangis. This should improve teacher retention as the Yangis-born staff will not face the travel costs or limited access to Yangis; and share strong cultural, linguistic and familial ties to the community. This strategy offers sustainable access to education for the Yangis community and is also financially viable, since the government has committed to paying the teachers’ salaries. Above all, it is a community-driven and empowering initiative. Community members are involved in the success of the project at every level. They participated in candidate selection, mentoring, evaluation. This makes the project effective and resilient, a sustainable way to provide education to the Yangis community.