CAREERS

Shame a strong motivation for John

Chimbu man runs from school but returns to studying with intent; to reach heights in sports, business and academia

By JESSICA TANDA
“NOTHING is hard to accomplish if you have the passion and drive to strive beyond your current given situation,” says John Kume.
John comes from Bolen village in Tabare LLG of Chimbu’s Sinasina-Yongumul electorate.
John is the second born of a family of five children. His father, Kumebona Kaupa was the chief councilor in the 60s.
John, aka JK ran away from school when in eighth grade at Muaina High School. Life was really tough for him and he had to do things for survival such building a fish pond and raising ducks, goats and pigs.
“I regretted that I cheated my parents by quitting school when they worked hard for me to be better educated. I felt that I had dishonoured my family and clan.”
During the December holidays when tertiary students returned home, John was rated their “bag carrier” by the wise old folk in the hausman or men’s house. The shame and humiliation stung him deeply.
“I felt ashamed that I was a failure so I avoided my old class mates and friends; I pretended that I was not interested to know of their life outside our Bolen village,” he recalls.
John left for Goroka and found a job with a company and then was reawakened to the value of education, and enrolled at the College of Distance Education’s Goroka office. From there he was also involved in rugby league with the Goroka Air Niugini club in 1986 and later with Siane club which he captained and also represented Goroka in the Highlands Zone trials.
The degradation was the turning point and motivation to study through Code and he planned to remove his clansmen’s tag of ‘bag carrier’ and take a turn in his life journey.

In late February 1994, he got a call from the Managing Director of Post PNG John Wagambie to pick up an airline ticket from the postmaster at Goroka post office as his application for the position of assistant coach to Post Puma Rugby League club was successful and his condition of hire was to live on rugby league allowance and after three months, he would start working with Post PNG.
“I was raw in knowledge and my pile of references was not thick enough. I had my Grade 10 certificate which I attained through Code in Goroka and a class three driving license because prior to that I was working as counter salesman and delivery driver with Lamana Wholesale. (I was laid off and was doing nothing when my application for the Post Puma coaching position was successful.)
“I boarded the plane and headed down to Port Moresby where I started coaching the Post Puma reserve grade and I was the assistant coach to head coach John Wagambie,” he said.
After a short while he was given the job as Wagambie’s personal driver, then he was moved to Boroko EMS and he started work as courier driver doing delivery in the city and coaching Post Puma players at university oval in the evenings.
In mid-1995 Wagambie left for Chevron and John took up the position as head coach of the Post Puma.
Then he was sent to Jacksons Airport mail transit centre as a driver and later supervisor.

“At 7-Mile I had a decent accommodation so I enrolled at Institute of Business Studies (IBS) and did a certificate in account course. After some years, the new MD to Post PNG was a human resource specialist, Andrew Waliman who did an internal talent search and found out that I could progress further if given the opportunity and he put my name on the postmaster training programme together with other graduates and we did in-house training at our 4-Mile Training Centre and later in the Telekom College in Lae. After that I was posted to various post offices in NCD and later as mail sorting supervisor at Boroko mail exchange.”
After getting his certificate in accounting, he was promoted to international mail accounts officer, in the Philatelic and International Postal Relation Division. Then he was accepted to do a diploma in business management course at Institute of Public Administration, (now PILAG.)
“Post PNG then sent me to train abroad and my next destination was the Asia-Pacific Postal College in Bangkok, Thailand where I did a three-month course on international mail accounting. Upon my return I was promoted to international mail accounts manager, looking after mail accounts section of the philatelic division.”
John did further studies with Divine Word University and graduated with a bachelor in management in 2015. Then, he was employed by the National Housing Corporation as assistant general manager of the technical division. In 2022, he decided to take another step in his pursuit of education, this time to the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG).
“I paid my own tuition fees and did a lot of personal sacrifice to get my MBA at the UPNG earlier this year.”
During Kume’s graduation with a Master in Business Management in April 25, with tears of joy in his eyes, he happily recalled the pain he felt 40 years ago.
“I think, the pain of being called a bag carrier is settled.”

Appreciating every moment

By SAMANHA KATI
EIGHTEEN years ago, seven-year old me was sitting and watching the 6pm news bulletin on television (TV) in my family friend’s house on Williams Street in Kenabot, Kokopo.
As I was watching, I admired the presenter on TV so the curious me turned around to my mother and asked how the person got in there and was talking there.
A friend who was also there jokingly answered me saying the person jumped in there and sat there and started talking.
My mom asked the friend not to answer that way because I was a child and was curious and wanted to know. My mother then explained to me about how TV works and told me about the three types of journalists which are TV, newspaper and radio journalists.
My mother asked what I would like to be if I ever became one and I told her I want to become TV journalist as I imagined I could sit and talk and she would listen and see me talking.
Fast forward to Grade 12, I wanted to apply to for a journalism course at Divine Word University in Madang or University of Papua New Guinea but upon my mother’s advice I had to apply to Papua New Guinea University of Technology and took a humanities course. After completing my studies in 2020, I applied for many job openings but none related to my field of study was successful and I am grateful for that as I get to be part of this incredible industry.
When I came across job opening for my current job I was hesitant to apply at first knowing I have no background in journalism but I decided to give a try.
In my mind I knew I would not make it but it was otherwise. The National gave me a chance and took me on board on Oct 3 last year.
Tuesday, Oct 3, marked my one year of working as a reporter with The National. It has been quite a journey and I have to say I’m my happiest now and regret not a bit to start my journey of a career in the media industry.
My job has definitely been good to me over this one year. It was not only being my bread and butter but it gave me more than that.

Growing up as a shy and self-contained person, I thought that I would never be able to work and talk to people.
When I was offered this job, I was so scared and thought that I might not able to last in this job.
The thought of constantly interviewing and talking to people, not just any people but especially people who are older than me and have vast experiences scared me the most and overcoming this fear was the most difficult thing I have done in my life.
The experience of the past 12 months with the help of my bosses and colleagues has changed my perception of myself, turning me into a more open person.
This job got me out of my comfort zone, built my confidence and self-esteem.
It instills me good communication skills, it made me able to speak up and out.
I get to understand and know how some government entities and departments operate a well as other private organisations. I have to say I learnt a lot in the past 12 months
I always wanted to be at a place where I can directly help people at the community level through my work to improve their livelihood and I am thankful that through this job I become the voice of people.
It was bit challenging coming from a non-journalism background. For that I am forever grateful for my bosses for their guidance and shared experiences have been invaluable.
I thank them for seeing my potential and help me harnesses it and also seeing my weakness and help me improve on.
I am honoured to have reached this anniversary and I am so grateful for the support and encouragement from my bosses, supervisor, my colleagues, my families and good Lord above for seeing be through.
I’ll be eternally grateful for my bosses who gave me the opportunity work to work in the Big Red Haus.