Nature Park begin culture, environment programmes

THE Port Moresby Nature Park kicked off its third term school programme for the year with over 500 students from four schools attending week one of the three-week programme.
The programme aims to educate and inspire others to guard Papua New Guinea’s unique natural environment and culture.
The Park’s “Culture Connects” school excursion programme is designed for children to learn more about music, the value of traditional money, the skills of weaving and their unique designs and messages of ancestors passed down through generations by the art of tattooing, the weaving of bilums and the art of making carvings.
The Culture Connects programme is conducted by staff of the Nature Park’s education department where students and their teachers also learn about the various environment topics through interactive learning, discussions and practical lessons.
Visiting students will be given time to weave, create traditional designs and music and make their own traditional money.
Nature Park’s education and life sciences manager Ishimu Bebe said the primary aim of this exercise was to teach children that while it was important to embrace modernisation, we should maintain our cultural values by learning about our past so that we can take pride in our culture.
Bebe added that the programme was developed to support PNG’s education curriculum.