Health venture assisted by Aussie author

By JINA AMBA
WHEN Covid-19 hit the shores of Papua New Guinea, it affected most organisations, business houses and even individuals.
One non-governmental organisation (NGO) that was affected by the pandemic was Spacim Pikinini Inc., which is based in Milne Bay.
Wendy Stein from the Spacim Pikinini Inc has published a book to further her charitable work in the country.
In 2015, Stein from Australia, with the support of her late husband bought a 13-metre cruise boat and named it Kula Spirit which was converted to a floating clinic that provides free medical service to the people of PNG, especially in Milne Bay.
Stein said unfortunately Covid-19 had affected Kula Spirit’s operations and it is grounded and not providing any medical services.
She said in order to raise funds to continue their work in the country, a book titled Rona Stole our Relief was published and sold in Australia.
The author, Gold Coast businesswoman and mother Chandra Clements, has written and self-published a series of five books highlighting the impact of coronavirus on various groups (children, mothers, students, etc).
Wendy saw the author posting on Facebook about this series and requested she consider including PNG women as one of the topics. Each of the books has a similar title (Rona Stole My Fun; Rona Stole My Grades; Rona Stole My Baby Bells) and so keeping with the series the author called this one Rona Stole Our Relief: The Plight of PNG Women. It is a 58-page paperback.
The book is about the general comparisons between the assistance given to child-bearing women and children in Australia versus that available to child bearing-women and children in PNG, and the call to action for us to bridge this tremendous gap.
The book then goes on to detail the origin and progression of Wendy’s own charity, Spacim Pikinini and the associated floating medical clinic, the Kula Spirit. It logs the services provided by the charity, details how the Kula Spirit came to be, and contains a poem dedicated to the women of PNG called “Would You Cry?” And ends with a tribute to Wendy’s late husband Brian Stein.
The books retails for Aus$12.95(K32.20) and at least Aus$5.50(K13.70) from each book goes direct to the charity to further support the work of the Spacim Pikinini charity and servicing the medical needs of remote village women of PNG.
The services listed in the book effectively detail where the funds could be used.
Wendy works with the volunteers to allocate the funds where they are most needed.
Rona Stole Our Relief: The Plight of PNG was published by the author’s own company, One Legacy Pty Ltd, on the Gold Coast of Australia on June 6, 2020.
The author’s own consultancy business had been seriously impacted by Covid-19 and so she turned to writing books in April 2020.
Her first book, Rona Stole My Fun, a children’s book, became an international bestseller. She then published two further books.
Wendy then messaged her on Facebook to ask if she would consider writing an additional book in the “Rona Series” to help the women of PNG.
She agreed and the book was born. Wendy forwarded her a series of photos and annual reports from the charity and this was used to map out the book. The author also used the charity’s Facebook page, Spacim Pikinini – PNG Inc for content.
So far the book has made approximately $1,500(K3,731) for the charity, however it is only early days as coronavirus restrictions prevented meeting and functions to promote the book for the first few months:
Wendy has been both moved to tears, reflecting on her and her family’s success through the pages of the book, as well as totally motivated to get it to the corners of every location she can reach.
Wendy has worked tirelessly to promote the book to politicians and dignitaries, Rotary clubs, businesses, schools and libraries. She has been on various radio stations and in numerous papers promoting the book and its fundraising impact.
She has received amazing support from so many of the politicians, businesses and friends she had approached.
One of the challenges faced by the author was that she has two children under five so writing a book like this in under two weeks was a crazy, tiresome and frantic process.
Wendy and the author exchanged a lot of late night and early morning Facebook messages given the author lives on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and Wendy lives in Port Stephens New South Wales.
Writing and publishing a book that suits all tastes is also no easy challenge. Wendy had the intense job of gathering together numerous photos she had stored over the years to be used in the book, especially given some of these photos contained very confronting and sometimes disturbing images.
The charity addresses the needs of many and the sadness of poverty, neglect, domestic violence, death and infant mortality are all aspects of the challenging work.
The book was solely funded by the author. She did the writing, editing, formatting, graphic design and publishing herself to minimise costs. There was no budget per se for the book.
The book has exceeded expectations and Wendy has embarked on a new period of her charity journey with a new lease of life almost.
Book writing is hard and promoting a self-published book is even harder.
Ensuring payment for each book requires a lot of work too. Yet both Wendy and Chandra are very passionate about the book and blown away by the response to it in its early months.
It was worth all the late nights and is a very different approach to how the charity has traditionally raised funds.