Mission to get K1mil

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday 11th June 2013

 By MIRIAM MALAWA

AUSAID have promised to give K1 million to City Mission PNG to fund city missions in Lae and Port Moresby. 

The money will be used to build dormitories and a vocational centre for boys housed by the city mission.

Mission director Pr Ron Brown said the funding would greatly affect the ministry. 

“These funds will allow for increased capacity and richer training experience for those involved in all aspects of the City Mission programme,” Brown said.

The services include life-skills training for young men to help them avoid crime and life on the streets, a refuge for women and children who have suffered domestic abuse and an orphanage for children whose parents died from HIV/AIDS.

The grant will hire more specialist staff and build staff accommodation, classrooms and facilities at training centres that are operating beyond their capacity. 

The head of the AusAID programme in PNG Stuart Schaefer said turning around the lives of vulnerable people made communities safer and stronger. 

“The mission takes young men off the streets and provides them with skills and an opportunity for a life other than crime and to be responsible members of their community,” he said.

City missions’ administrative manager Dorothy Koch thanked AusAID and said they had more than 100 boys each year to look after but lacked dormitories and beds.

“We would like to take in more but we can not provide them with a bed to sleep on,” Koch said. 

She urged other NGOs to assist them in meeting the needs of young men and women.