Counsellor in need of help

Weekender
LIFESTYLE

By HELEN TARAWA
FAMILY and sexual violence in PNG is often not reported out of respect for the culture, society, traditional beliefs and customs.
Women and men knowingly suffer from violence in their relationships but continue to endure it for fear of losing their integrity, their pride and their social status.
This is the story of young woman who knowingly suffered all forms of violence from physical, verbal, sexual to emotional but continued to tolerate this life for 17 years simply because she was the founder and owner of a children’s day care and feeding school.
I got to meet this woman in one of the Christmas feeding programmes that she hosted with support from various business houses.
It was on a Saturday and as a reporter on duty at that time I visited her school on the outskirts of Port Moresby in ATS Oro Village to get the story.
It took courage and confidence for Penny Sege-Embo from Kurereda Village in the North Coast of Northern to build the Tembari Children’s Care project out of nothing to where it is now.
Sadly violence had crept into her marriage and destroyed her family and for the benefit of the school and the partners and sponsors, Penny left the school and she also walked out of her 17 years of marriage in 2017.
Two years later the mother of two decided to speak out because she felt that it was time she handed over the school to interested buyers who would manage it.
Penny had attended the following schools: In 1988 – 1990 Ahora Primary School; 1991 -1992 Sangara Primary School; Resurrection Primary School from January – August; 1993 transferred to St James Dewade Community School in August 1993.

Receiving her Westpac Outstanding Woman’s award for
her work with the Tembari Children’s Care project.

She undertook studies at the Centre for Distant Education in 1994 – mid 96 and left for Port Moresby in November 1996.
She enrolled at the Gerehu Study Centre and completed Grade 10-12 under the Anglicare Stop AIDs Staff Development Fund.  She was to have to upgraded her marks to apply studies at the University of PNG but her books were burnt and her movements in the city were restricted.
Her sponsor for that particular study programme was Paradise Interior.
In 2000 she met and married her husband.
From 2000 – 2009 she started Christ the King Anglican Church Children’s Ministry at ATS where she saw the needy children and initiated the Tembari Children’s Care project with 15 children.
By 2009 the number of children, aged between three and 15 years, had increased to 200.
While running the school she was employed by Anglicare Stop Aids PNG as a community educator and voluntary counsellor.
With the help of the Anglicare Staff Development Fund agreement with AusAid, Penny successfully completed Grade 12 and left Anglicare in 2009.
“My plans to upgrade my Grade 12 marks to further my studies at UPNG were ruined as my text books including other course materials were burnt to ashes.
“In 2009 I started work with the Save the Children PNG as a sexual health counsellor in the Prevention and Behaviour Change project but resigned due to ongoing violence.
“In mid-2013, I secured a job with Medicines Sans Frontieres known as Doctors Without Borders as an intermediate partner violence counsellor but resigned due to violence in my own home.
“While I was at home the situation worsened so I decided to find a job with Lifeline Oxfam-funded project under the Ending Violence against Women and Girls in PNG as a senior counsellor and case manager.
“The physical and verbal violence continued to disturb my work and I couldn’t cope so I asked Oxfam for and was granted repatriation to my village,” she said.
Penny returned to the city because her two children were sick.
She secured a job with the Child Fund PNG as a senior counsellor for the national gender-based violence hotline service (1Tok Kaunselin Helpim Lain) in 2015 and that was her last job.
“I am one of those survivors of family and sexual violence; silently I struggled while keeping things calm and was putting on a brave face to continue the project because that was where my heart was.
“However it came to a time that I couldn’t handle anymore and that is where i have stopped totally and walked away quietly without having anything to do with it.
“There was a time when I was invited to be a penalist at the International Women’s Forum in 2015.
“My former husband physically and verbally abused me, putting off my phone and directing all calls to his phone.
“I didn’t make it to the forum to give my speech that day which was very painful and shameful.
“I have never communicated or explained to the organisers and sponsors because my phone was smashed into pieces the next day and they did not know what had happened and I had no way of informing them.
“I have experienced extreme violence for the 17 years of my marriage,” Penny said.
Through her work assisting women and children, Penny was recommended for the Westpac Outstanding Women’s Award in the Trukai Community Responsibility category in 2014.
When the project started expanding and attracting more sponsors and donors her situation worsened.
“My children were affected by the violence including the orphans and abandoned children.
“I also had 314 children attending the Tembari school but they too were also affected because I was beaten up and called names in front of them.
“I have moved out in order to protect the project and our integrity.
“Eventually I made up my mind and just got my little pack with few clothes and I left my home, project and my children on March 3, 2017 just right on the Tembari’s Foundation Day,” she said.
Penny left everything behind and had been living with families.
“It has been three years now, I have not been involved in the project and I am not consulted any more.
“All my belongings were destroyed; my freedom of movement was restricted.
“There was a lot of verbal abuse, physical violence, emotional abuse and sexual violence resulting in families, friends and children not being able to come to the centre.
“I registered the case on many occasions with several legal aids but it all didn’t work out for me up until today the case is still pending.
“I have come to the stage where I couldn’t get help anymore and therefore, I would like to expose it in this manner so that the public, donors and sponsors can make comments to help me to settle this matter.
“I would like interested persons to purchase this property and continue with the project as follows,” she said.
Apparently the land on which the project is located on belongs to Penny.
She said the Tembari project was her initiative but for a long time she had been faced with the situation where nobody had supported her or reported the matter.
Penny said families, neighbours, staff, communities were awre of her situation but nobody wanted to help and the community law and order and external services was a failure.
“I sometimes sit back and try to reason out things if its sorcery related violence because every step I took didn’t work out for me as a senior counsellor and case manager.
“I’ve helped women and children through my work as counsellor and care giver but there was no help coming forth for my own situation.
“I kept this treatment in secret while my children and the project had suffered.
“It is about time I hand the school over to new management once the interested persons purchased the project.
“Those days of letting justice prevail is over. All I need is to sell the property and someone with the similar interests can purchase so that he/she can continue with the work because it is a community charity project.
“I am now making my bold stand to sell the project,” Penny said.
Penny is just one of many such women and men out there that had spoken out.
We hope that her story will encourage other women out there with similar situations to speak out and get help.