Villagers give food to hospital

By GIBSON TORASO
UPNG Journalism student
A GROUP of people in Western Highlands have donated three truck-loads of food to the Mt Hagen Provincial Hospital as part of a campaign to help “needy organisations”.
The people are from the Mt Giluwe LLG area and the Paia Kona Community Development Association.
The food crops and vegetables were handed over on their behalf by former council president Kome Topela and councilor Jeffrey Bras.
The two councilors said the donations were part of the community’s thanksgiving activity, where cash donations were used to strengthen church activities in the community.
Food donations were given to needy institutions such as the hospital.
The donation, mostly locally grown foodstuff, include round cabbages, broccoli, onion, kaukau, potato, corns, pumpkins, bananas and taro.
Bras said the community in the Mt Giluwe LLG had made an undertaking to donate whatever they could afford to the hospital – and will continue to do so in the future.
It was the third donation to the hospital since they started the initiative in 2009.
Donations are also directed to schools and prisons, with Baisu jail one of the targets.
“We are trying to give what we can from our land to the public institutions in need.
“To serve our people in the country and province,” Bras said.
He is happy to see the community making such donations.
Bras and Topela challenged other communities in the province to follow their example and do the same to needy institutions in the province.
Acting chief executive officer Dr Michael Dokup thanked the people and their leaders for their generosity.
He said that their food donations would greatly help the hospital to cut down on costs.