Help needed for rural people

People who live in the urban areas now have a habit of sitting around waiting for what the government will do for them.
This is different for people in the villages who have enough natural resources to run their own affairs but do not have the right people and the technology they need to build an industry.
People in the rural areas have already registered their cooperative groups but are not receiving enough support from the Government and organisations to make them work well.
The Government is only focusing on non-renewable resources and ignoring renewable resources.
We need to do more to boost productions in things like cocoa, coffee, rubber and timber.
A lesson can be learnt from the people of Markham valley who have been seeking financial assistance to export their cocoa.
If we have a chocolate factory here in Lae or up at Markham, we will make things easier for ourselves and promote self-reliance.
We should also look at ways we can provide local people with rice-harvesting machines.
The Government should look at downstream processing and arm it with the right technologies to empower our people in the villages to keep them busy and away from the towns and cities.
As the saying goes, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Linny Lemos
BTCD/3 @ UNITECH,
LAE