School gets K42,000 support

By PETER ESILA
THE Kapuna Community Health Workers Training School in Kikori, Gulf, has received K42,000 from local MP Soroi Eoe to help with students’ tuition fees.
The cheque presentation occurred at Port Moresby’s Jackson Airport yesterday before the school representatives boarded a flight to Kapuna via Purari.
Eoe, who is also the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Religion, said education was the key to any development and he would continue to support it.
“Key to understanding the world around you and making meaningful contribution to national development, without education, you can’t. Kikori district is backwards in everything, including education,” he said.
Eoe thanked the school, which comes under the Gulf Christian Services Mission, for having been servicing the district for 60 years.
“This is a missionary organisation that has contributed to the health welfare as well as education of our people and they have struggled for a very long time.
“This is one of the helps that I want to give to the students and for a very long time, as far as we know, students have been paying from their own pockets.
“This community health workers are very important in so far as providing medical care to our people in the Kikori district, particularly the Ihu, Baimuru and Kikori sub districts.”
The school’s project and finance manager, Wijnand Mulder, said many students attending the college struggled with fees and often did not continue with studies.
“It ends up in us having to release them or in some cases we have to release them for some time and they look for funds elsewhere and some manage to gather the funds needed and others don’t,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we can’t allow them to finish their studies if they do not commit to their tuition fees, so the support that is provided is very much appreciated for the continuation and the wellbeing of our students and training school in Kapuna.”
Similar presentations were done early this year where K42,000 was given to Metago Theological College and David Kini Bible College in Kwikila, Central, for Kikori students’ tuition fees.
“We have also approved some K105,000 for students who are attending other higher training institutions which we will look at and pay,” Eoe said.
“But by the end of this year, we should be able to establish scholarship schemes so that we can put some money aside and when the school year starts next year, we put some funds quickly and efficiently.
“So my effort is to educate our people from Kikori for the next five years, even if it means training them to be pilots, I will do that.”