Sawaraba flies off to Prague

By ALPHONSE BARIASI
Ian Sawaraba, from Gona in Northern left last Sunday to go half a world away to Prague in the Czech Republic to study for a doctorate in one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious universities.
Sawaraba will do a doctorate in research work and study environmental pollution in mining, oil and gas development and hopes to oneday help people affected by the extractive industry sector.
His own Northern province is also impacted by large scale oil palm production but an independent scientific study of such development has not been done for years which is a concern.
The 32-year-old will be in Prague for four years under a prestigious scholarship programme in Charles University. He will be pursuing a doctorate in environmental science, specifically in waste pollution in mining, oil and gas development.
He will return for some research work in Madang in around March and that is when he will take his wife Nancy and their three children with him back to Prague. The Oro Provincial Government has contributed financial assistance to make this possible.
Charles University, known also as Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe in continuous operation and ranks in the upper 1.5 per cent of the world’s best universities.
Sawaraba said on his departure that studies on the environmental impacts of mining, oil and gas were relatively new and a very few Papua New Guineans would lay claim to any real insight in the area. Industry and government have been relying on overseas consultant for years.
But he believes there is a catch to that.
Consultants paid by big companies and government cannot be expected to provide objective assessments on impacts of major developments on the environment and lives communities in affected areas.
Sawaraba has made his family and Yega tribe proud. His dad Dunstan travelled from Popondetta to see him off to Europe.
“I’m not only here to see Ian off but in accordance with tribe protocol I need to do the right thing and report back to the tribe what I have done when I return home,” the senior Sawaraba said in Port Moresby last Thursday.
Dunstan and his wife Sandra, from Siassi Island in Morobe run a small guest house in Popendetta today having raised their three sons who have done well in education.
Their eldest Dwayne is the national industrial gas manager of Origin Energy, Ian is their second and Darren the third is studying at the IBS University, Mt Eriama campus outside the Port Moresby.
“For a doctoral candidate, Ian is quite young. He started school very early; he’s a very special kid, doesn’t talk much and I didn’t realise this until much later,” the happy father said.
Sawaraba is the pride of his tribe, being the only one from out of his people to have attained a master’s degree from the University of Technology four years after completing his first degree in food technology.
He completed the food technology degree in 2008 and found a laboratory job with SP Brewery in Port Moresby.
After four years he returned to Unitech to do a master’s programme and that was when he streamed to environmental science and did his major research work in that field and worked at the National Analytical Laboratory located at the university campus.
From there he joined a third party company to do soil sample testing for drill sites and well pads in the PNG LNG project in the Southern Highlands/Hela.
While he was there, the Niugini Binatang Research Centre in Madang contacted Unitech and said they were looking for a mining chemist so Ian’s supervisor linked him with the Madang centre and the sponsors in Prague.
“It was a long processes of going to and fro over two years with a number of interviews and tests before I was finally confirmed to undertake the four-year doctoral programme at Charles University under the European Stars Programme,”
There were 800 applications worldwide for the Stars Programme three years ago and 25 candidates were short-listed and the final five were selected last year. Only one candidate each has been selected for five different divisions of science proposed for research in the program. These candidates include two from United States, one from New Zealand, one from India, and Sawaraba from PNG.
Under the programme intellectuals from foreign countries contribute their expertise and academic work to European host nations while undertaking important research work which will in the long run benefit their respective countries.