Our NGOs go where the government fears to tread

Letters

Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) are to be underpinned and embraced by the national Government and business sector.
All NGOs aim to bridge the wide poverty and inequality gap that is hardly addressed by the national Government and profit-making industries (business sector). The NGOs zoom in to see the burning needs of marginalised people in the streets of our towns and cities. For those who are forever getting lost in the far-flung peripheries of Papua New Guinea, the NGOs try to create a path of hope for them to realise their potential.
NGOs are non-profit-making organisations whose main objective is to address the core chronic issues affecting human welfare.
Their target group are the marginalised citizens who have no political voice, are illiterate, are orphans and widows with no family, no accommodation with zero income, have no clean water and sanitation, no healthcare services and no security. This group of people is more prone and vulnerable to all kinds of problems which are either of their own creation or created by someone else.
The government is focusing on bigger public goods and services while the business sector, either formal or informal, domestic or international, is focused on profit-making, leaving the
vulnerable to fend for themselves. The situation the vulnerable and deprive people find themselves leads to social issues; when they grow hungry they turn angry and when they are angry they turn to crime. We see girls becoming sexually active and pregnant at an early age.
Then we have the unfortunate ones who are lost in hinterlands without access to services that others take for granted.
We hear so much positive stories of our economy, that it is recovering or growing or taking shape but where is the evidence that can give hope to the vulnerable people in our communities who have little or no hope?
For economic development and growth to have any meaning, the marginalised people have to witness and feel it. GDP growth does not mean anything if it cannot bring positive changes into the lives of the poor and underprivileged in society.
This is where the NGOs come in; where the government cannot see they can, where the government cannot make noises they can, where the government cannot go they can, where the government cannot spend time they can, where the government cannot hear, they can.
Our NGOs deserve the help of the national Government and business community for they are the ones who bring hope where there has been none, they bring darkness where there has been no light, they bring love where there has been hate and they bring security to where people have not felt safe.

David Kennedy,
Cebu City