Learning from the turtle

By HELEN TARAWA
ABOUT 120 km outside of Port Moresby on the northern coast of Central province is Babaka village.
This village is known for its story about the turtle which is told to visitors and friends and I had the opportunity to learn of it while covering the Central province Persons with Disabilities survey/data collection training of trainers’ workshop last month.
The story of the turtle is linked to the Macleod Tekira Skills Training Institute which is located in Babaka village.
Not too many people know about this institute except those who have been there.
Founder Tegana Rupa makes it his responsibility to educate and inform people about the centre using the story of the turtle.
The name Tekira stands for the three Rupa brothers Tegana, Kila and Raule and the institute was funded by the British High Commission and so it was named after the High Commissioner at that time, David Gordon Macleod.
Tegana and his family are the caretakers of the institute and I had the privileged to listen to the story behind the centre of learning.
Tegana takes up the story.
I was trained as formal education teacher in 1961 and I started teaching in 1963. In 1975 I became a non-formal educator. I was with the Department of Education since 1975 and ended my career in 1984.
There are three elements of education – formal, non-formal and informal. Formal education is approved by parliament and taught in classrooms, the non-formal education plans are based on the basic needs of the people.
When I came out to the village, I continued teaching my people under my house.
A woman from Australia, while distributing mosquito nets in my village, learned about the training programmes that I was conducting.
She found out that I was doing something beneficial for the people so she went away and brought a sewing machine and some money.
She organised the women in the village and they sewed a lot of items which they sold to earn some money.
This amazed her more so she wrote to some of the development partners to assist fund a centre which could cater for such activities.
The British high commissioner at that time was David Gordon Macleod (2003 – 2007) and he funded the institute which is why we named it after him.
He officially opened the institute on Oct 12, 2006.
The institute was established to help the people in the rural area and the type of buildings here represent our standard of living in this village.
Our centre’s logo is the turtle, turtle lives in the sea but when the time comes for it to lay its eggs, it goes ashore, digs a hole, buries the eggs and leaves. The eggs are on their own until they hatch and that’s survival of the fittest and how they manage is in their own hands.
The goal of this centre is to help people define their own destiny, whatever skill and information one receives is totally dependent upon that individual to implement. You either to make it die or keep it alive, just like the turtle.
Macleod Tekira Institute hosted the first ever Central province persons with disabilities survey/data collection training of trainers’ workshop last month.
About two years ago there was a conference regarding people living with disabilities and I was invited to give a talk about elderly people.
One of the recommendations that my group suggested was that persons living with disabilities should be pensioned.
Now they have brought the training of trainers for data collection of persons with disabilities to my village in my centre and I feel satisfied that I had an input.
We learnt during this training programme that they are talking about giving them pension and I am very pleased.
I was one of them and it’s in my centre that the training of trainers programme was held here.
It was established for rural people and it must be utilised by the provincial government or Rigo district or extension officers when they have plans for development in the rural areas.
I challenge the people especially those in offices, often times the planning is always done in the offices.
My challenge to people is that they should utilise this centre.
I believe that people in the rural areas should be recommended to have such skills and knowledge so they can utilise it to help the people.
Most of the school leavers return home to the villages but there are no facilities to cater for them for training.
When we set up the centres like this they are supposed to be training youths to be useful in their communities to give back to their communities.
This is lacking so quite a lot of these children get married and they don’t know how to work in the gardens. It takes them a while before they settle into the village.
And their behavour is not acceptable. Training institutions like this should be utilised by the provincial governments to assist such young people.
The centre had been lying idle and we were going to pull it down but we decided to leave it and we are grateful that the Department of Community Development hosted its programme here.
A lot of people want to run their programmes in comfortable places but I believe Macleod Tekira can offer a simple village facility that will help them participants understand the people’s way of life.