Rotarians to give computers to Kokoda

THE Cooma Rotary Club, New South Wales, is continuing its goodwill mission to small villages in Papua New Guinea by collecting an enormous amount of donated goods that will be sent over in a few months.
The club has been helping the people of PNG for about seven years, undertaking one of its biggest projects, to restore and deliver more than 200 bikes to the students in the village of Kemabolo in Rigo, Central, in 2010.
But the club’s members have not stopped there.
Now they are collecting computers – and they have about 120 already – sporting equipment including 130 basketballs, medical supplies and children’s books.
About seven pallets of goods will be shipped to PNG in April to a number of different villages and projects.
Rotarian Chris Adams has played a major role in coordinating the projects in PNG and been on a number of trips with other members.
These include one in 2007 to construct a new water tank in a village and in 2010 to deliver the bikes.
On Friday he and wife Kim picked up a pallet of about 70 computers from Snowy Hydro.
“It just started as one project but there are so many avenues to help the people of PNG,” Adams said.
As part of the shipment the village of Kemabolo will receive bicycle parts, sporting equipment and medical supplies.
About 30 computers will be donated to the Kokoda Track Foundation which builds schools in villages along the Kokoda Track.
Another 20 computers will be sent to Buk Bilong Pikinini, which just built its eighth library in Port Moresby.
The computers have been donated by government departments in Canberra but the biggest donor has been Snowy Hydro.
Cooma Library has donated hundreds of picture books and junior fiction books to be sent over while the Canberra Capitals basketball team donated the basketballs through a scheme where they invited people to bring in their old basketballs and they gave out new ones.
Later this year Rotary are planning another trip to PNG where they will build a computer room at Kwikila High School and build a dam at another village called Gamoga.
The village has no water supply and women have to carry 20 litre drums on their head to transport the water.
The Adams run the Rotary coffee van that operates at the Cooma Rotary Markets in Centennial Park on a monthly basis.
The money collected from sales at the coffee van go toward the projects, amounting to about US$10,000 (K27,300) each year. – Cooma Monaro Express