Maika, Mougulu owe Lloyds family a lot

MAIKA Yabua has known Sally Lloyd all his life and her influence has shaped his desire to serve his people in Mougulu, Western.
Sally and her siblings were raised in Mougulu where her parents, Tom and Salome Hoey, who moved to Papua New Guinea from Australia in the 1960s, established the Mougulu mission station.
Over the next 50 years, they built five airstrips, health clinics, churches, schools, radio station and a hydro-power plant. They stand as the legacy of the Hoey family and other missionaries to this day.
Sally continued in her parents’ footsteps to serve the people of Mougulu to this day.
She and her husband Ian established the Nomad Mougulu High School, the first high school in the area.
In 2021, they enrolled 154 students. This year, the enrolment increased to 222, including the first Grade 10s.

“ We see Sally as someone we don’t want to lose. She and her husband are very important to us.”

The nearest high school is in Kiunga which takes six days to reach on foot.
Maika’s father had worked with Sally and her family at the Mougulu mission station. Maika grew up there.
The bond between the families grew.
His father attended Sally’s elementary school. Maika too went through the local school before he was accepted at the University of Goroka in Eastern Highlands.
Sally and her family supported him throughout his academic pursuits.
Maika returned to teach at the Nomad-Mougulu High School, teaching Science and Mathematics. He became the first man from Dodomona village in the Strickland-Bosavi region of North Fly district to have a university education.
It is an achievement his family and community are most proud of.
“My people are excited that I am back. I have no doubt that the students here will become somebody in future.”
Maika owes it to the people to come back and serve them.
He also is indebted to the Lloyd family and their commitment and contribution to the young people of Mougulu and the Strickland-Bosavi region.
“We see Sally as someone we don’t want to lose. She and her husband are very important to us.”
Sally, when asked about what drives her work, said: “Just seeing young people really keen to learn. That is going to make a huge impact on their communities. Especially children with learning difficulties or disabilities, they finally get a chance to go to school.”
She tells her students: “You are all important even if you don’t go on to secondary school or university. But through education, you learn skills which help you stay in your village to support your people by learning skills like how to be a good farmer or to run your own small business.”
Sally wants her students to realise their value as members of their communities and to teach them life-skills that will help them support development through improved agriculture methods, health, and nutrition.
The Mougulu locals have been viewing themselves as a “forgotten people” – until the establishment of the high school. They now see an opportunity for their young people to progress, learn about the wider world and become part of it.
Ten years from now, Sally hopes to see students go on to be trained as teachers and return to Mougulu to educate children in their communities.
Maika has already become the first one to do so.

• Story and picture supplied