Candidate helps deliver baby

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

MORE than a week after nominating, Wampar local level government ward 20 candidate Mary Sual last Friday helped a first-time mother to deliver a healthy baby girl in her home after seven hours of labour.

Despite this delivery being her first achievement after her village birth attendant basic training a couple of years ago, it brought the 28-year-old to speak on her ambition to fight as a councillor to improve the living and working conditions of women in Wampar, Huon Gulf district, Morobe.

It was a good omen for Sual, a mother of seven from Tararan village. She hopes her achievement can become real in the election as she challenges three male candidates.

“Women and mothers suffer more in community, it is harder with the community facing a natural disaster with floods which have affected our water and sanitation which is one area I am pushing for,” she said.

“I want to be elected so that I can fight for better health and education services as well as get the youth population organised to improve the community as productive citizens,” the former teacher said.

She said the community had suffered in recent years after the decline of betel nuts, and which saw the people shifting their attention and labour to selling dry coconuts.

Sual is confidence as she is part of a group of women candidates in Wampar who are contesting in the wards, following the feat of the country’s three female parliamentarians in last year’s general election.