HDI marks 22 years of training for real independence

By AILEEN KAIULO
The weekly articles in The National by Samuel Tam, affectionately known by many as Papa Sam, are fulfilling a purpose in themselves.
Papa Sam’sweekly column is titled Education for Life. Our readers find it very educational, motivational, inspiring and more importantly readers find it gives for a better future.
As Papa Sam has said countless times, over and over again, true education is mind development. Everything you choose to do under the sun always starts from thinking it.
It is what the mind can conceive and believe that the mind can achieve. Our mind is a constant battle field as it is continuously battling good and positive thoughts from the bad and negative thoughts.
For the educated readers these weekly articles challenge them to make a review of their length of education to see if it was worth it or not. For the less educated and unfortunately the ever increasing number of uneducated ones, it gives them a chance to be part of the rest of the accepted community that we all live in.
For some who are still searching for their purpose of existence this gives them a boost to start something out of nothing. Regardless of the readers’ current situation and environment in life we can all agree that Papa Sam’s education for life articles really do give a light of hope for everyone and a glimpse of a better future some thought never existed in their lives anymore.

The Bomana Rehabilitation Programme – a public private joint venture between Bomana CS and Human Development Institute.

Since HDI’s Personal Viability and the Game of Money training programmes commenced at Bomana CS we have seen and have been fortunate enough to witness the transformation of mindsets from the poor mindset to now the rich mindset.
We can all agree that the education system that we all came through deprived us of the chance to learn how to make full use of our gold mind.
For the inmates as we have read in their testimonies in their progress of rehabilitation, they have confirmed that the Personal Viability programme was where they discovered their true self knowing their capabilities and the potentials they have posed all alone.
Upon realisation of this it gives them a new sense of belonging, a new kind a freedom never experienced before and mostly importantly, it gives them this confidence to be themselves regardless of the time, the place and the situation they are currently in.
Giving them this glimpse of hope that there are definitely better days ahead and more better giving them the chance to exercise their new-found sense of freedom we are also able to provide them a chance to do so and that comes in the Game of Money training programme.
The best part of the education system HDI provides is that no one makes the decision for you to start something; the onus is up to every individual to make up their mind to start something for themselves. It is amazing to see that the inmates have taken ownership of their lives and though it is surely going to a long learning process for them.
One thing is for sure; they have chosen to take this path as they know it will lead them to many great experiences.
For the CS officers it has really helped them with their work in trying to help rehabilitate the inmates.
Before the HDI programmes most of the inmates were worried about the duration of their terms. Most of the time it was a constant and continuous burden on both ends as it was the only thing that kept them going at the same time it depressed them even more.
The HDI programmes are the real intervention on both paths. Inmates are no longer burdened by worrying about the duration of their terms. Instead they are now spending their time on their little projects they have started since the inception of the Personal Viability and Game of Money.
They are no longer prisoners of their minds simply because they have taken ownership of their lives through their use of personal power.
They are more at peace and they look forward to the future knowing life still goes on though they may be behind the gates of the Bomana MSU.
Apart from the uniform and the gates of Bomana they are all people like us with feelings and views that matter so much more now than before. This is a bonus for the officers as there is ease and understanding on both ends on a positive pathway to true rehabilitation.

US Ambassador’s attends Batch 1 graduation at Bomana

We had the greatest pleasure of having the US Ambassador to Papua New Guinea Catherine Ebert Gray attend our first graduation ceremony at the MSU at Bomana.
She said she was very grateful and privileged to have been invited to witness the graduating participants of the Personal Viability Training facilitated by Barbra Nenewa.
She represented all the diplomatic community in the country. This show of support goes to show it may be the smallest of gestures but one thing is for sure and it is all for a good cause and for the benefit of the people in our country and eventually the world.

Coaching of PVBS coaches

Coaching of PVBS coaches’ journey began on July 19, 2018. It was facilitated by Papa Sam.
This came about when Papa Sam saw the need of real life coaches in order for us to help people to transform their mindsets. We are all good at teaching the knowledge and skills to people but coaching people on how to make full use of the knowledge and skills we have imparted to them is what we lack in our society today.
Papa Sam confirms by saying we have never been taught this way so adjusting slowly but gradually and eventually adapting to this new way of thinking and doing things is obviously going to be a challenging yet rewarding process in the long run.
We have to go into this journey with a theme and a purpose and that is A VIABLE PERSON + VIABLE PROJECT = SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS.
The purpose of a coach is to impart the skills and knowledge then continuously coach the person on how best they can use the skills and knowledge they have gained to their full potential to benefit them until it becomes their habit and their new way of life.
Everyone has his or her own creative thinking. They just need someone to bring the best that is in them out in slowly harnessing, growing and better still improving as time goes by until it becomes a part of their life.
Everyone in this world is capable of bringing forth positive outcomes to their lives but they search for inspiration and motivation elsewhere when they can just look within themselves and discover the unlimited things one can imagine.
There needs to be someone there to continuously remind them of their progress and that is where the role of a coach comes in.
Coaches are put in place basically to provide a support system for a person in the form of a mother, father, brother, sister, niece, nephew, grandmother, grandfather, friend and most importantly, some who keeps reminding you of the miracle you have been born to and will live to become when you keep believing in yourself. Coaches help set you up on a pathway to a great life.

Micro projects

We feature Barbra Nenewa and her Level 4 projects in the two canteens she is currently running together with her family.
Personal Viability is about believing in yourself and your capabilities and your potentials to bring forth benefits to her family. Barbra is making use of the skills and knowledge she has acquired over the years and under the coaching of Papa Sam has resulted in her reaching her Level 3 Game of Rich Level and currently on the fourth level which is into micro projects like trade stores and canteens.
Income-generating projects include cooked food, wooden boxes like the Adam Boxes and sewing.
Income generating projects are the sole provider for the majority of families in the world today simply because of the less and less opportunities available to be in the formal employment sector. We have the pleasure to introduce to you some of the projects our current students are taking simply to generate an income.

Meri blouses

Joyce N’drewou comes from East New Britain and is currently undergoing Level 3 training under Papa Sam’s coaching. She sews meri blouses to sell.

Roselyn Temata

Roselyn comes from Manus and is currently undergoing her Level 2 training at Bomana with the rest of her batch mates. She cooks and sells aigir to help her reach her target.

Adam Boxes – Peter Kilamaina, Edward N’drewou and OsorneTebe

These men are proud to have been part of lat Trevor William Adams’ woodwork training facilitated at HDI. From the training they are now able to create gift boxes daily trying to meet their target within a limited time frame.
Upon completion of their Level 2 Game of Money training programme preparation is already underway for them to venture into Level 3 Game of Rich projects like vegetable farming, fish farming, horticulture and more projects to eventuate as more participants graduate and move up the levels.

City markets participation

We have been privileged enough to have participated in two Port Moresby city markets stationed at the Sir John Guise Stadium.
Our participants were more than grateful to be given this opportunity to showcase their skills and talents in cooking, sewing meri blouses, handcrafts and woodwork.
The show and display of some of many products gave an insight to the participants what it is like in the real world of business if they choose to continue with HDI’s training programmes so far – Personal Viability and the Game of Money training.
This market also gave the inmates a chance to be outside the MSU Bomana gates and be part of the community. Some were even able to spend much needed quality time with their family members that came by to support them.
It was a rewarding experience to be able to sell their food products and handcrafts and more rewarding was the great learning experience on a customer basis as they were able to mix and talk to different people of different backgrounds on how they related to them in their customers’ needs.
It was amazing to see how much people were willing to support the inmates of Bomana as it was part of their rehabilitation programme under the partnership with HDI.
Thanks to the organising committee of the POM City Markets for donating to us a free corporate stall for more of the inmates to do their sales.
The Personal Viability and the Game of Money training programmes have really given them a sense of belonging in the community like never before. They now feel they are part of the bigger community where their feelings, thoughts, views and everything else they do matter as much as everyone else.
This is the part of the programme where we can proudly say that yes they really are willing to take this pathway in the process to rehabilitation. In order for them see this programme through they are the ones to take a stand and make maybe one of the most difficult decisions in their lives to never ever give up no matter what because they know in their hearts this opportunity is solely in their hands to improve their lives for the better.

Enterprise Monitoring Application (EMA)

As part of Human Development Institute (HDI) Professional Studies curriculum, a performance monitoring system called Enterprise Monitoring Application (EMA) was developed to work in parallel with the training.
The EMA harnesses leading innovative business intelligence (BI) tools to create an easy to use graphical user interface to monitor an organisation’s performance through statistical analysis, forecasting and predictive modelling
The EMA project started out of the desire to monitor the performance of projects carried out by inmates (participants) attending the HDI/Bomana CI Rehabilitation programme in 2018.
The need was to capture the “track record” of each participant on a weekly basis, with regards to the income generating projects, and with this data allow the coaches, management and board of the rehabilitation programme monitor and then analyse the progress of each participant. With the engagement of a local BI solution provider (Ennovation Ltd) the EMA was then realised.
The process of implementing such a system came with its challenges, especially in standardising and cleansing the data, however the resulting product (EMA) was a business intelligence solution that delivered a single platform of easy to use visualisations that the coaches and managers use.
The stakeholders involved are now able to quickly extract a data verifiable, factual, track record of each participant, all within a few clicks. Coaches are now empowered and have an up to date “track record” (history) of each participant in the programme and therefore can carry out enhanced coaching to improve performance rather than spend time on collating data.
There are now over 100 participants that have adopted the EMA on a weekly basis from the HDI/Bomana CI Rehabilitation programme, with incentives introduced that are based on results achieved via the EMA.
Seeing the improvements (shown through each participant’s track record) has in turn given each participant an opportunity and a sense of wanting a better life for themselves and their families beyond the fences of Bomana.
The Bomana CI hierarchy are now equipped with a non-judgmental tool that can assist them to make decisions on other rehab programmes for inmates etc.
The monitoring provided through the EMA has given the project stakeholders with a clear insight as to how well the project is performing, where the positives and negatives are.
EMA’s user-friendly layout allows executives to see a high-level view of the organisations/projects performance through the goals they set and provides the ability to drill-down to the performance of each personal.
Due to its flexibility, EMA is well-matched for use by commercial (micro to large enterprises), social, community and educational projects. In fact, for any type of project, large and small.
The HDI professional studies together with EMA is set to transform the way in which organisations can track the performance of its projects, processes, products and people.

The Crossroads Foundation

The Crossroads Foundation, based in Hong Kong actively supports the Social Welfare Department and wide range of NGO’s in providing help to individuals and families living in vulnerable circumstances.
Their ultimate goal is to be a crossroads in a broken world, connecting people in need with those who can help and they do this through this four types of services;
1. Crossroads Global Distribution –Provides aid relief and development in over 90 countries.
2. Crossroads Global Handicrafts – Provides business solutions for people in poverty fair trade and social enterprises.
3. Crossroads Global Hand – Offers a matching website service that helps connect people who want to help with poverty , climate change, education, employment, migration, HIV Aids, disaster response/reduction, water issues, shelter, food security, environmental and many other global responsibilities and challenges.
4. Crossroads Global X-perience -Offering x-periental programmes on war, HIV/Aids, blindness, hunger, water access, inequality in the trade and complex global range of issues that hold billions in poverty. The old proverb says: I cannot understand a man until I have walked a mile in his shoes.
The foundation has made donations to over 80 countries in the world with 60 per cent donated within Hong Kong itself and the rest to the other countries.
HDI represented by founder and chairman Samuel Tam Snr was fortunate enough to have been given an invitation to visit their headquarters in Hong Kong late last year after they were formally introduced at the Yidan Prize nomination.
After finding out what HDI’s work in the programmes of Personal Viability, Game of Money and the Game of the Rich and the progressions from level to level having trained over 40,000 people in Papua New Guinea and Asia-Pacific they agreed to have a partnership to work together.
Through this partnership comes the positive outcome being the first container shipment of goods which will be arriving in PNG. The goods range from electrical, clothing, household, office equipment, machines, computers, etc.
These goods are destined for earthquake victims in the highlands and Bomana prison.
If other countries see the importance of HDI’s training programmes that is really transforming mindsets from a poor mindset to a rich mindset then we need to make a stand and take ownership of this PNG home-grown products and join in the journey in helping ourselves locally and eventually globally because the support systems are already in place to help us and this partnership with Crossroads Foundation is definitely a positive way forward.

A final word of thanks

HDI, CS head quarters, CS MSU Bomana, the inmates, CS officers, CS officer’s dependents and others that have been part of these programmes since their inception would also like to take this time and opportunity to thank everyone – the corporate houses, institutions, government departments, NGOs and the general public that have helped in one way or the other in – purchasing food products, handcrafts, meri blouses, wooden boxes, scrapers, penny boxes, etc from the participants of HDI’s training programmes.
Looking back we would not have come this far without all your support. Your contributions, from the smallest form to the biggest, have definitely helped our participants in reaching their set goals and most importantly made them feel a sense of belonging in the world we live in today, especially for the inmates in their journey towards rehabilitation.
This movement of change through the transformation of mindsets and eventually lifestyles has really helped these participants to be financially independent and self-reliant and this journey will surely continue to other communities in this country and eventually the world.

• Articles and pictures by Aileen Kaiulo and Barbra Nenewa of HDI.