Dancing, singing effective tools for awareness, says official

By OGIA MIAMEL
AWARENESS should be conducted in a fun way such as dancing and singing instead of using loudspeakers, an official says.
Sustainable Coastlines Papua New Guinea representative Ryley Webster told a youth training that using hailers was ineffective.
“I don’t know when that style of awareness came to PNG but we all probably agree that it doesn’t really work that well,” Webster said.
“Awareness in villages has been around storytelling and dancing.
“That’s sort of ingrained in you to understand – not yelling using the loudhailer for one hour.
“Most people feel like being told off.”
He said the organisation based their awareness on environment sustainability by using sporting personalities such as Ryan Pini, rubbish turned into artwork and fun activities in communities and schools.
Webster said people often rushed activities of a project and failed to assess whether the community was able to digest all the messages at once. “Community projects are like paintings – you know what your projects will look like. Just like an artist, they have every colour available to them to paint the picture,” he said.
“We have the same with community engagement – each colour will represent the different activity or engagement with the community.”