Links of Hope PNG Newsletter - December 2025

Year in Review 

As we wrap up another busy year at Links of Hope, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our loyal supporters, funders and key program partners who have made it possible to continue our work this year supporting children and families living impacted by HIV in Papua New Guinea. 

We have established and driven work in our key areas of health education, adherence counselling, child protection and establishing of peer support networks with our adolescents. We have driven programming and ventures with the National Office of Child and Family Services, UNICEF, PNGIMR, the Burnett Institute, ACTUP, PNG National GBV Secretariat, The Department for Community Development and Religion and the Department of Personnel Management, supporting their recent 20 days of human Rights Activism in Mount Hagen. 

We have delivered programs such as UNICEF'S Parent for Child Development Program and Adherence Training Workshops to both caregivers and adolescents with a newly developed curriculum. 

We delivered our Back-to-School Program supporting 200 children to get back to the classroom for the year with essential supplies and we were able to acknowledge significant occasions such as PNG's 50th Independence Day,  International Children's Day and the Deloitte's Community Impact Day with special events and Ela Beach and Port Moresby Nature Park. 

We continue to provide regular care package essential supplies to the 300 children on our Child Sponsorship Program and are indebted to Nestle in PNG and Trukai Industries who make significant in-kind contributions of food supplies to enable these to continue. 

We are finally proud of our small but effective teams in Port Moresby and Mount Hagen who work tirelessly and passionately to make a difference in the lives of our children and families. We have up-skilled this year in Trauma-Informed Counselling, HIV-disclosure training, Case Management Validation, Social Work training, Nursing and TOT (train the trainer) to name but a few areas! 

Suppliers

Nestle contribute supplies of noodles, milo and nutritional supplements to supplement our care packages. We have been indebted in their commitment to support this year. 

We were delighted in the second half of 2025 to receive the news of an expansion of regular support from Trukai Industries, proving our rice supplies in both Port Moresby and Mount Hagen each month. 

Tango Ltd and Z.W.Q. Trading are our uniform suppliers in both locations and work tirelessly with our teams to ensure children are kitted out for school each year. 

World AIDS Day

1st December is always a very significant day for Links of Hope as we join with other key partners in PNG and stand together to break stigma and advocate for those living impacted by HIV. We also remember with sadness and compassion those caregivers, staff members and especially children who prematurely have lost their battle against this cruel virus. We remember them -  uniquely made, wise-beyond-years, kind-hearted, passionate for a cause, immensely strong individuals who taught us so much and motivate us to continue our work in their honour and for their legacy. 

In Port Moresby this year we joined with partner organisations and heard the story of Nancy (pictured here, centre in right hand picture) who has had 3 children on our Links of Hope child sponsorship program for many years. Nancy was diagnosed HIV positive before she had her children and she heeded the advice of doctors to faithfully stay on HIV medication during pregnancy. She gave birth to 3 healthy HIV negative babies. Today her eldest son works as an Accountant after graduating University and her story is an encouragement of hope to all mothers. Statistics in PNG are that 7 children a day are born HIV positive in PNG. With education and sharing of stories like Nancy’s our hope and belief is that mother-to-child transmission of HIV can be completely eradicated. 

Graduates

We are extremely proud of these two young men who have been with Links of Hope many years and who graduated with awards and accolades their respective course at the end of this year. Both boys have done work experience with Links of Hope and are role models amongst our adolescents. We look forward to journeying with them into further education and helping them seek appropriate employment opportunities. 

Staff Snapshots

Diane and Becky in Mount Hagen have joined the team this year and a great assets in driving forward our connections with caregivers and with government departments and partners in that location. 

Freddy in Mount Hagen is picture here with Daniel on a mission to Tari to support one of our lost-to-follow up children. The tireless work of our Pastoral Care teams tracking down children and delivering adherence counselling, ensures children maintain and understand essential medication regimes. 

Junior in Mount Hagen is a graduate of our program and supports our PC Team in Hagen – here he is at our closing program last week. 

Seruma is our National Operations Manager, pictured here with our Social Worker Eli in Port Moresby – both are long-standing and vital members of our team. 

Naomi is our Community Nurse in Port Moresby and delivers Health Education sessions to our caregivers. 

Teshilda heads up our Port Moresby office and is here receiving the gift of first Aid kits from a generous community of supporters in Australia. 

End of Year celebrations 2025 

Huge thanks to Z.W.Q. Trading in Hagen who provide a cake for our celebrations and to Capital Insurance in POM who donated gifts of personal care and hygiene packs to all our children earlier this year and then hosted a special end of year celebration for our children with cake and ice cream last week.

2026 and beyond ….. 

We are readying ourselves for a busy start to 2026. Our first initiative will be our Back-to-School project, made possible this year by generous support from Namba Wan Trophi Haus for school uniforms and backpacks for every child from Westpac in PNG. We are indebted to Kina Bank who will again donate annual legacy funding in memory of our founding board Member, Nancy Moka, which will enable us to function operationally and contribute to all our key programming to start the year. 

We will then launch into an intensive delivery of P4CD programs across multiple locations plus some Trauma-informed workshops, with funding from UNICEF and also the Department for Community Development. 

Thanks ….. 

And finally to say, if you are receiving this newsletter, you have contributed in large and small ways to enable Links of Hope in Papua New Guinea to continue to do the work we do.  

We say thanks and farewell to Steve Woods and his lovely wife Kerri as they ‘go pinis’ from PNG at the start of 2026. Kerri was foundational in some of our early work as an NGO and Steve has sat on our Board in PNG for over 10 years. We are indebted to their commitment and passion for our work and we look forward to staying connected. 

We are often amazed that we get to continue this work into our 15^th year of operation and are grateful for all the support we receive from such generous people who value, believe in and trust in the quality of our teams and the work we do. 

Thank you and we send our love, prayers and Blessings for this special season. 

Deb, John, and the Links of Hope Team