Max inspires his people to end fighting

Weekender
COVER STORY
Church elder Banip Satibe speaking at a recent gathering.

UNITING warring communities, tribes and families is not easy when coming from a rural area in the mountains of Wain-Erap LLG in Nawaeb district, Morobe.
Kapmewang, a community with just under 500 people and located outside Lae city is a 30-45 minutes’ drive from town give or take depending on the dusty, half sealed, road sections on hillsides along the way.
Kapmewang and the neighbouring Limbum and Kwalibu communities had had multiple fights and disputes that erupted over the years over land and other family and tribal related problems of the past that passed on from generations.
This disrupted peace amongst the communities and working together for a better community was falling apart and somewhat unreachable.
But all this changed when 27-year-old Max Aron from Kapmewang went to Lae city looking for opportunities and met a couple of friends who introduced him to a training on building toilets.
The training was facilitated by World Vision, the implementing partners of Unicef under the EU-Unicef Wash project in Nawaeb.
“When I heard about the training, I thought this was just another opportunity to eat food and learn what I could learn and move on. I did not know this would change my life and my community,” Max said.
Following the training earlier this year, Max was eager to go back to Kapmewang and convince elders in the community to embrace the idea of building toilets.
Community leader and church elder in Kapmewang Banip Satibe said it was very difficult to convince elders in the communities.
“We were old fashioned in our thinking, when Max told us about this idea of building toilets we did not take it seriously,” Satibe said.
“He was even shy to talk to us, so he mobilised the youths as some of us in the community didn’t agree with the idea at all,” Satibe added.
Max and the youths discussed and agreed to build the first toilet which was Max’s. They then moved onto building toilets for widows, old women and broken families that needed assisting.
“Families who had arguments amongst themselves, children of tribal enemies started working with us in building these toilets,” Max said.
“We (youths) didn’t bother what our parents thought, we all put our differences aside and worked for the good of our communities.”
Seeing this, the elders were convinced and joined the revolution in building toilets and keeping their communities healthy, safe and free from sicknesses.
“Enemies started working together, people who had grievances with each other over land started working together; work in the communities saw a drastic increase in participation from community members,” Max said.
Ben Ewa, a youth leader in Kapmewang said, “because of the way our fathers lived in the past and the way of life they had, we became like how they were and continued this way of life we had.
“This crippled our chances of learning and accepting new ways of living and improving our own livelihoods.
“We didn’t see anything good or how we as youths could do to help our communities,” he said.

Kapmewang women at a community gathering.

Wash officers from World Vision were also present to support Max and the youths see through the construction of toilets in having proper verification with technical expertise.
During Max’s training, he learnt the importance of having open defecation-free (ODF) communities.
ODF is the disposing of human faeces in a way that faeces do not come in contact with human beings or animal vectors.
Max had the idea of ODF at the back of his mind and needed to do more awareness so people in his community are more aware of the importance of building toilets.
With the backing from the communities, Max was appointed leader in Kapmewang and the village declared its ODF status recently.
Defecating in the bushes is now something of the past for the communities as over 20 households in Kapmewang, Limbum and Kwalibu communities have toilets with tippy taps.
This has even improved the lives women and girls in the communities for they now have safer toilets built near their houses and they need no go to bushes where it was unsafe.
“We used to live like outlaws and this was a big change. We are all now working together. Now when someone calls for community service everyone responds and is present unlike in the past,” he said.
Youth leader Ben Ewa added that “what we as youths created now is developing our community and setting a good example for our kids in the future.”
Max and the youths have now moved on to motivate other communities in parts of Nawaeb district in a similar approach.

  • Story and pictures supplied by Unicef.