P4CD
Our Team have been working diligently over the past 6 months delivering the UNICEF Parent for Child Development Program across 5 communities in rural and settlement communities in Mount Hagen and Port Moresby. We’ve trained 138 caregivers, responsible for 411 children within this time – teaching them skills of positive reinforcement and relationship building with their children. The training was insightful and reflective given the fact that behaviours that are considered harmful were easily pointed out by caregivers through the role-plays and interactive discussions portrayed through the training materials. One of the main highlights that the participants were able to identify and to an extent un-learn was using violent approaches to disciplining a child’s behaviour and instead using positive attention. Jacinta, 36, said ‘I learnt so much about not being reactive when an unwanted behaviour is being displayed. Instead, I can use the effective tools I have learnt from here. I am so happy that I have attended this training’
Our Links of Hope Team of staff and volunteers have also been busy upskilling over this time, completing training as ‘Train the Trainers’, in PSEA (Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse) and training in creating Child Friendly Spaces, in line with UNICEF policy. Through this, we have had a team ready to be deployed, as required, to assist with the Engan landslide disaster.
Back to School Projects
We are always active in the first part of each year, equipping around 250 children on our child sponsorship program to get back to school for the year. This year we are grateful to our major sponsor Kina bank in PNG, for providing annual funding that assists with this initiative. We are also grateful to Westpac, who provided school backpacks for all our school aged children in both Port Moresby and Mount Hagen.
Monthly Care Packages
Monthly care packages are the means by which our Links of Hope Teams are able to regularly connect with the 300 children and young people on our Child Sponsorship Program. Connection at care package distribution days means that we can carry out pastoral care checks on our programs and support children and caregivers to attend essential regular medical reviews. Children who do not attend our care package collections are followed up in communities to check on their wellbeing. As you can see from photographs, in some of our rural and mountainous regions near Mount Hagen, these visits can involve mountain treks and river wades to get to our children! All of this is made possible by the loyal and faithful support of our regular sponsors, some of whom have supported links of hope children for many years. At the start of 2024, we’ve been grateful to partner with the Nestle Team in PNG, who have committed to supporting with regular food supplies to supplement our monthly care packages. We are currently working with Nestle to develop a nutritional initiative, to educate and promote good nutritional, particularly in pre-school aged children on our Links of Hope program.
Hospital Visits
An important part of our work is supporting children on the Links of Hope child sponsorship program when they might be in a situation of being admitted onto hospital wards. Sometimes caregivers are absent or from remote communities and are not able to care for children in hospital. Some children are in hospital long-term due to drug resistance or needing oxygen permanently. One little boy just returned to. His community after many months after contracting abdominal TB. Our Pastoral Care Teams can be a lifeline, visiting children, providing supplies, prayers and a familiar friendly face. Sometimes the children come to our Links of Hope Respite Home on discharge for further rehabilitation and care before returning to their families.
Staff Profile – Isaac Wama, Adherence Counsellor, Port Moresby
We have a few staff changes in the first few months of 2024, with an expansion of staff in our Mount Hagen Team, adding some clinical experience and support. This opened a gap in our Port Moresby Team with a couple of new staff members joining there – including the very capable Isaac, who has quickly adapted to the team, bringing some much needed expertise in his field. Isaac has a background in Social Work and Counselling and is currently undergoing further study in Law and Public Policy. He has provided mental health and adherence counselling across corporate and medical sectors for the past four years, having previously worked with both Child Fund PNG and FHI360. His friendly and personable nature, professional experience and heart to support vulnerable populations are an asset to our team.
We extend our ongoing thanks for your support and interest in Links of Hope PNG. We. Have been working for over 10 years to support children and families living impacted by HIV in Papua New Guinea. We operate predominantly through a Child Sponsorship Program to provide regular practical and pastoral care support to families. We also work with key partners to drive Child Protection Policy in PNG and deliver funded projects in areas of Health Education. For regular updates please follow our Facebook and Instagram accounts.
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