Rewarding good works

Kevin Pamba

IT is held in indigenous PNG philosophy that one has to give so as to receive. It also goes that good acts are rewarded at their own timing at a later date. The traditional PNG thinking is in harmony with the Christian teachings of “love” and “doing unto others what you want them to do to you”.
These virtues come to the fore as the exemplary insti-tutional leadership of Divine Word University in managing its own “amazing progress” and fulfilling PNG’s national development objectives was acknowledged at an impor¬tant occasion last Saturday. This was at the opening of five new double-storey dormi¬tories at the Madang campus funded by the Australian Government.
AusAID through its PNG Incentive Fund provided K8.3 million for the dormitories that will accommodate 320 undergraduate students. Three of the dormitories are for females and two for males.
It is the second time the PNG Incentive Fund provided money to DWU within 10 years to build vital infrastruc¬ture.
From the first funding, DWU built the Friendship Li-brary and the 500-seat SVD Memorial Auditorium.
The Friendship Library complex also houses the 150- seat Sir Peter Barter Audito¬rium, Diwai Post Office, the Noser PNG historical collec-tion library, seminar rooms and offices. The Library is served by the latest infor-mation and communication technology that enables users to access online data bases/ libraries and wireless com-munication.
As required by the Incen¬tive Fund, the Library and SVD Auditorium are avail-able for public use besides meeting the university needs since they were opened in 2004.
When the Incentive Fund was revived few years ago, DWU bid for funding for much-needed student dormi¬tories. The Incentive Fund board did not hesitate to approve the DWU bid. When announcing the funding early last year Fund board chair¬man, Dr Thomas Webster told the DWU community that his board and AusAID who provide the money, did not hesitate to approve the Uni¬versity’s bid.
Dr Webster reasoned that DWU met all requirements and demonstrated good lead¬ership and accountability in the first funding which helped its second bid.
Head of AusAID in PNG, Stuart Schaefer and Secretary of National Planning and Monitoring, Dr Peter Kora both acknowledged the exem¬plary leadership of the DWU management in managing the university’s progress and con¬tributions to the nation in its 16 years of being a university.
Schaefer said the DWU is an example of what good leadership can bring out in an organization.
He said funding that bilat¬eral partners such as AusAID and the host government provided is only “a small part of development”.
“Good leadership is more important.
“DWU is an example of what good leadership can achieve,” Mr Schaefer said.
He said as head of AusAID in the country he was pleased to visit a fine university that was showing much promise.
Kora gave the thumbs up for DWU as well. He said giv¬en the university’s historical connection with the Catholic Church, it is an example of what churches continued to achieve for the country in education and health in particular.
Kora said where there is no government presence the Catholic Church is out there to provide the needed ser¬vices.
He said the government is now seriously partnering with churches because they have a proven record of providing the services in rural areas where the majority of the people live.
The secretary said donor partners have to work closely with churches as well.
The students thanked the Australian government for providing them with five new dormitories and also acknowledged the hard work of the university administra¬tion and staff who made the construction of the dormito¬ries possible.
“Your support shows that you care for the country,” said Rosemary Miria, the presi¬dent of the Students Repre-sentative Council.
She said the new dormi¬tories, were part of ongoing positive changes taking place at the University to serve the needs of the country.
The student leader said the students will take of the dor-mitories in appreciation.
DWU President Fr Jan Czu¬ba said the dormitories were the result of partnership with the various stakeholders.
“Together with our spon¬sors and partners in develop-ment and the DWU com¬munity, we are celebrating another achievement in DWU’s development,” said Fr Czuba, who is regarded as the single-most influencing factor in the phenomenal progress of DWU. Fr Czuba is the found-ing president of DWU who was pivotal in converting the previous Divine Word Insti¬tute (DWI) into a University in 1996, barely a year after assuming office as President of DWI in 1995.
Echoing the words of Aus¬tralian Prime Minister Julian Gillard, Fr Czuba said: “We are here today to celebrate the positive outcome of teamwork and partnership.”
He said DWU is making its contributions to PNG’s devel¬opment where possible.
“DWU is not only making contribution to the continual growth and progress of the economy but it also contrib¬utes in a positive way to the social and political affairs of our country.
“PNG is faced with big economic, social, cultural and political challenges thus our society more than ever needs to value the contributions which our universities are making towards the develop¬ment of this land,” said Fr Czuba.
DWU council member and retired Madang parlia-mentarian, Sir Peter Barter summarized the significance of the occasion thus: “I have been directly and indirectly involved with the amazing progress DWU has made and I think I speak for everyone that have been involved with the University including the students, that it has been an amazing experience (witness-ing DWU grow from strength to strength in a short 16 years).”