New Gazelle centre to monitor programmes

THE Gazelle district in East New Britain is soon to have a Community Development Centre (CDC) built to coordinate Department of Community Development, Youth and Religion programmes.
This comes after a memorandum of agreement was signed by four other districts – Pangia (SHP), Yangoru (ESP), Abau (Central) and Kikori (Gulf) – to have the centres at their localities this year.
The centre, which would be built at a cost of K5 million in a partnership agreement reached by the Government through the Community Development, Youth and Religion Department, ENB government and Gazelle district, would be the third centre in the country after Imbonggu in Southern Highlands and Bialla in West New Britain under construction phase.
Department Secretary Anna Solomon said it was the department’s strategy to take its offices, which she described as mini-departments, to the districts that would house and administer programmes of gender-based violence, child protection, disability, elderly and church partnerships in a well-coordinated manner.
“These centres would really be the mini-departments in the districts,” Solomon said. “Right now we do not have our face in the districts. Districts are where 80 per cent of our people live, and it is where most of the issues that we want to address exist so we really have to be there.”
Of the K5mil, K2mil would be for the building, K1.5mil for a transit home and another K1.5mil for capacity-building programmes such as leadership training, management and communication programmes.
Deputy Secretary, corporate policy, Jerry Ubase said it depended on the readiness of districts.