Badminton officials volunteer with NCD food bank project

BADMINTON Papua New Guinea officials have volunteered with the National Capital District’s “Feed the Hungry” food bank project amid the Covid-19 state of emergency.
Joining a handful of other paralympians and local community groups, the volunteers helped to organise and distribute food supplies.
Donations to the food bank project flooded in from city residents and businesses, and were delivered to disadvantaged families and those with disabilities.
Badminton PNG president Kinivanagi Karo led the packaging and storage workforce which included para badminton coach Brian Karo, who also leads the country’s Pacific Sports Partnership (PSP).
Through PSP, the PNG-Australia partnership with the Australian Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs provides aid to deliver Shuttle Time sessions in PNG.
Shuttle Time is an innovative training programme designed to assist teachers and coaches in the delivery of safe and fun badminton lessons to children.
The initiative celebrated international success earlier this year as participants from the sessions attended the Victor Oceania Para Badminton Championships.
“We want to demonstrate that sport is always here to help the community,” Karo said.
“It’s great to assist a community which is so close to our badminton community too.” The team are almost a week into volunteering which started by cleaning out large venues before organising food bags to distribute across Port Moresby.
The food collections are set to continue until the end of this month, in which time the avid Shuttle Time teachers and Badminton PNG members plan to continue their services, in the hope of being joined by some of their para players depending on the state of emergency.