Pake has a heart for children

 By JINA AMBA

HE has a big and kind heart – and the street children in Port Moresby are thankful that Colin Pake can take them into his home, raise them like his own children, and send them to school.

Pake is married with two children and although from Enga, he was born and raised in West New Britain and calls it home. 

While a student at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2001 and 2002, Pake was involved in church community activities such as feeding sick people and visiting prisoners.

“It was my free time so I just went out to help those in need,” Pake said.

It started to catch his attention.

“I felt that it was something more than a visitation or a voluntarily job. So I was thinking about it after completing my studies and graduated,” he said. 

He came across vulnerable, homeless, neglected, and helpless children on the street. 

In 2006, Pake started to dedicate his time and resources in helping them.

 “After doing that I found out that it was my true purpose,” he said.

“My true identity was discovered in the process of involving with street children. I began to realise that there was passion in what I did, that I was so caught up with what I was doing. Being young and energetic, I just wanted to work with the children in the street, especially in helping them to be somebody in the future. 

“With no parenting or fatherhood experience but taking in the street children as my own, inspired me. The academic results they got just wowed me. These children have hope, this kids have potential – only if we give them the opportunity.

“That’s how I discovered that for me personally, it became part of my life.” Pake got married in 2011 and told wife Freda of what he was doing. She quickly blended in because Pake used to take her to the centre to look after the children.

In 2013, Life PNG Care was registered. “The name Life PNG Care is a name that I was so passion about. In the logo, you will see a small house and a child inside it with green leaves popping out – this means raising children in a family home environment.

“My concept is to raise children in a family home environment. When we bring in those children who were abandoned, my dream is to create a family home that they have been missing.

“That way I started to look after them. My home is called a family home care because I want these children to feel that they are living in a family home.

“I don’t want them to grow up thinking that this is an orphanage. In that way, psychologically, a child would be disturbed in the development stages.

“I always say that these are children who have potential and hope. Don’t think that they are orphans. We don’t have to think that way. We have to see them just as a normal child growing up in a normal home. That’s how Life PNG Care came about.

“We have our own admission process. We have to go through screening where the child’s health is checked. We have to identify the child and he must be genuine. If we get a child from the street, we have to ask him where he stays and go to that particular place to confirm with the people there.”

In terms of discipline Pake treats every child as his own.

“When one makes a mistake, I correct them and tell them not to make the same mistake again. It is totally free. In that way, their minds would be free emotionally and will be healthy.”

He has been sending them to school in the past 10 years as he sees them as future leaders.

After all they are God’s children like anyone else. All they need is for someone to provide them live and care.