Uni students teach on hope, change of mindset

Normal, Youth & Careers
Source:

The National, Wednesday February 26th, 2014

 By ZACHERY PER

FIVE students from different universities in the country spent their holidays trying to drive positive messages of hope for change to eliminate the lazy aspect in life regarded as the root cause of poverty and starvation in society today.

They began spreading messages from Kainantu, in Eastern Highlands, through to Mt Hagen, in Western Highlands, covering four of the seven Highlands provinces.

The students received overwhelming backing from Apo, Angra, Amga and Kange (AAAK) Coffee Cooperative Society to carry out the awareness with the theme “How will the future generation be like?”

University of Technology student John Wawia talked about law and order problems threatening the society where a silent war was between lazy men and hardworking men.

“Lazy men versus hardworking men is a silent war going on in rural areas of PNG. An example of a lazy man is that he does not make gardens and owns nothing in the village, while the hardworking man owns gardens with fruits, vegetables and other garden crops,” Wawia said.

Another student, Sharon Kuikui, from the University of PNG, talked about the Dutch Disease, what PNG will be like after all the mining and mineral resources are depleted.

“Laziness will drive the country to poverty, we must grow what we eat and not buy and eat. If you cut a tree, plant two or three new ones to  replace it,” Kuikui said.

She said PNG must change its mindset from a consumption mind to investment and entrepreneurship mind.

Another student from the University of PNG, Kevin David campaigned against people selling land, calling on them to lease the land rather than selling them off at once.

“Utilise the land to its full potential and become productive because today, there are more mouths to eat than hands that work,” David said.

Beda Kuglame, from the University of PNG, questioned what the future PNG held for them if they were lazy.

“The current trend where PNG is going is like a ship without navigational equipment, for a ship cannot find its destination without good navigational equipment,” Kuglame said.

He strongly emphasised they used tools to work the land and bible to listen to God’s words and become wiser.

The students unanimously called for a total ban on importing of playing cards, bingo and dart boards because they were a distraction.

They found that laziness promoted jealousy that led to sorcery accusations and killings.

According to the director of AAAK, Brian Kuglame, they will make a strong recommendation to the governors of four Highlands provinces to remove gambling of all forms.

“The students looked at the past, present and future and found that laziness was the cause of all evils in society, the police commanders of the provinces covered fully supported the students,” Kuglame said.