Over 200 primary school students attend first event

MORE than 200 students from 10 primary schools in Mt Hagen attended the first annual event of Equal Playing Field (EPF) on Saturday.
This was the first time for EPF to stage an event in Western Highlands with schools in Hagen Central taking part.
The event was staged at Hagen United Primary School hall.
The students who attended were in grade six, seven and eight.
EPF is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Port Moresby and has been visiting provinces to help primary school students learn through extra-curricular activities such as art (drawing and painting), poetry and drama and addressing social issues such as gender-based violence (GBV) in communities.
This activity is sponsored by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef).
EPF programme project officer Joy Havak said the NGO was based in Port Moresby and had been carrying out the event with 17 schools in the nation’s capital and this was the first time to reach out to another province.
She said this was an annual event basically to help students in their learning.
Havak said her colleagues, Emmanuel Ben and Douglas Rapa, helped organise the event on Saturday by transporting students and teachers to the event and back to school. She said the 10 primary schools that participated in Mt Hagen were Nanga Emmanuel, Minimb, Mugand, Koglamp, Koge Namba, Kelua, Ogulbeng, Wimbuga, Anga and Engnui.
Havak said the aim was to help promote education for students through learning new skills.
“These are very important messages and training that we are trying to bring across to schools.”
Havak said apart from learning about GBV, students also listened to talks about bullying and peer pressure which distracted them from learning. She said after Mt Hagen, EPF was looking to extend the activity to other schools in the region.
“This is where students will come to learn new things such as GBV and how to address them in schools,” she said.