The cry of our mothers

By MARY KONOBO
WOMEN in the rural areas want to be able to give their families a better life. They want to prepare a good meal or buy new clothes for their children.
They want to take their children to the hospital or clinic. Getting to town markets is a problem due to lack of transport. It costs to catch a PMV to town and many don’t have the surplus cash to do that.
Walking miles to get to the nearest market and finding that you cannot sell all your produce can be very disheartening and stressful.
The soil in most areas of the country is fertile and any kind of vegetables and fruit can grow on it. Women want to be educated, to be able to read and write. They want to own permanent houses some day and even be able to take a trip on a plane one day.
This is the cry of the rural mothers.
Every woman in the village has a story to tell, every mother in the rural environment knows the hardship that comes with living away from the main towns.
A group in Northern is trying to change all this. The women of Sohe have established an organization that will help empower them.
Their cries prompted a local father, Copland Kavani from the Hohorita village to come up with this idea of getting mothers together in simple business.
Kavani knew that this was not a new idea and he’s heard about different women groups involving in business already but he had new hopes, and dreams that he wanted his sisters and mothers to try out. He wanted better results for the women of his district.
He brought together a few women leaders in and around his local village and set up the first working committee on the 26th of December last year.
On the 27th of January 2017, the women of Sohe District witnessed the official launching of the business group.
Called the Northern Simple Women in Business (NSWIB), the group was established to empower Women of Sohe District through the National Government funded Small—Medium Enterprise (SME) stimulus package to engage in various business activities in the 74 wards in four local level governments; Higaturu, Kokoda, Tamata and Kira.
More than 3000 excited young and old women, mothers and grand-mothers turned on the day to witness the launching. What made the event more empowering for these village women was the handing over of their first vehicle, a Mazda double cab ute.
The vehicle was donated by local business man, Peter A Oresi.
Oresi took the initiative of registering the group and further donating the vehicle. The vehicle will be used for the purpose of administration runs.
Speaking at the presentation, Oresi further stressed that NSWIB will assist women venture into micro-business thus create Wealth, Develop Financial Freedom/Independence and raise their living standards.
Oresi already has his sight on bigger things for the group.
He said he has plans to train and mobilize women to meet the commercial banks, particularly Development Bank’s requirements and criterions. The women will be tasked to work in collaboration with National Development Bank, whose help will be sought to facilitate the acquisitions of loans to thousands of disadvantaged women in rural areas of Sohe District.
NSWIB will also assist develop a savings culture amongst the rural Sohe Women and offer means for women engaged in the informal, semi informal and formal economy to get easy access to loans to start up or improve wealth creation and employment opportunities.
This concept introduced by the NSWIB will eliminate the culture of handouts. It is looking at motivating and encouraging the women to be self-reliant and work hard to generate private monies instead of waiting for public monies that come with stringent disbursement guidelines.
The launching of Northern Simple Women in Business compliments the government’s Small–Medium Enterprise (SME) concept that aims to assist rural people, particularly women engage in business reserved for ordinary Papua New Guineans
The women’s group motto is, Empowering Women of Sohe District to Help Themselves. For the women, this is a fairytale story with a good ending.
n The writer is a Research and Business Development Officer with PNG Institute of Public Administration.