ENB tertiary students drive election awareness

National, Normal
Source:

The National – Wednesday, February 2, 2011

By ABIGAIL APINA
TERTIARY students in East New Britain in partnership with PNG Electoral Commission will be in blue hair today in what is called a “Blue-Hair Float” as they visit Kokopo, Gazelle and Rabaul districts to carry out awareness as part of a pilot project in the country.
Students were asked to plan major awareness programmes aiming at disseminating awareness to the public
regarding electoral issues such as the LPV system, enrolment and voting.
They designed five awareness programmes early last month and started implementing them last week.
The awareness programmes included a new radio programme “Yu ting wanem” which will be airing people’s views on certain electoral and civic issues on Kokopo National Broadcasting Corporation, a promotion and awareness “Blue-Hair Float”, talk-back shows on NBC, a mini Expo to conduct a mock election and a change-advocacy talk in one of the tertiary schools.
The Kokopo tertiary students pilot project funded by the electoral support programme is said to wind up this Friday with a mini Expo.
“We hope that this pilot project is successfully carried out so that it can be adopted and implemented in other provinces as a drive towards achieving good governance and a free and fair general election 2012”, electoral manager Terrence Hetinu said.
He added that the Electoral Commission realised the need for more awareness to reach the public and engaging tertiary students in the project was a first-time concept which carried weight and hoped in achieving their awareness strategies.