by Charlie | Dec 19, 2019 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TOURISM, KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, KOKODA TRAIL VILLAGERS, OUR PHILANTHROPY
Network Kokoda was established by Adventure Kokoda who specialise in the wartime history of the Kokoda campaign. Their trek leaders have a combined total of 160 years professional military experience ranging from the Vietnam war to Iraq and Afghanistan. They have worn the uniform and are committed to the legacy of our Kokoda military heritage.
Our community projects across the Kokoda Trail continue to improve the livelihoods of the subsistence villages who live along it.
Our objective, as the major
philanthropic organization on the trail today, is to earn the respect of local
landowners who are the custodians of land sacred to our shared wartime
heritage.
We exist to honour the legacy
of our Kokoda veterans the PNG wartime carriers.
As a result we have a different approach to normal civilian NGOs in PNG in that we use our networks to establish local partnerships. We don’t hand out funds on behalf of Government or other well-intentioned individuals as this inevitably leads to an attitude of Aid dependency.
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by Charlie | Nov 28, 2019 | KOKODA TRAIL VILLAGERS, OUR PHILANTHROPY, PNG
Early this year we were alerted to the plight of a 14-year old Kokoda schoolgirl who needed a a lifesaving heart operation – one that had to be performed overseas due to the medical complexity of her condition.
‘Our daughter’s health is our priority and the further delay of her operation has been a concern for us which is becoming desperate, thereby resulting in our plea for your assistance’ wrote Mrs Doreen Dumu, a nurse at the Kokoda Hospital on 29 January 2019.
Her daughter, Freda, has a ‘tetralogy Fallot‘ which is a serious congenital heart defect. The surgery she requires is not available in PNG and the cost of the operation and rehabilitation in Australia was in excess of $100,000.
We contacted the PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) and suggested that they get every trek operator to submit the name and contact details of each of the trekkers they would be leading across the trail during the Anzac period – a practice that should have been put in place a decade ago to capture the contact details of the 50,000 Australians who have trekked Kokoda since then. Unfortunately numerous requests to establish such a database for fundraising purposes over the years have been ignored.
Their refusal to assist Freda was perplexing in view of an earlier decision by their Acting CEO to ‘donate’ $150,000 to an Australian NGO to hand-out as ‘educational supplements‘ to local villagers on and beyond the Kokoda Trail. Calls for those funds to be reimbursed have been ignored.
We also sought assistance from a close friend and supporter, Jeff Hudson, a Director of the Children’s First Foundation. Jeff worked tirelessly to help ‘create the miracle‘ for Freda but as it transpired it was beyond their resources.
We then tried Rotary Oceana Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC). They were also keen to assist but there seemed to be an issue with Children’s Hospitals in NSW accepting patients from the Pacific.
We wrote to the Minister for Health to see if he could check it out on our behalf but didn’t receive a response.
We also arranged for Emily Kleing from the Oro Community Development Project to assist us with any liaison necessary as she is now residing in Port Moresby, We had previously worked with Emily to help build a TB Isolation Ward at the Popondetta Hospital,
We then published a Facebook post to ‘help reverse the death sentence for a 14 year-old Kokoda schoolgirl’ and invited trekkers to contact the KTA to support our fundraising efforts but they continued to ignore her plight.
Just as we neared the edge of desperation an ‘Angel’ emerged from PNG:
Dear Charlie,
I am so very pleased to inform you that Pastor Dr Kirk head of our Paediatric cardiology partners “ For Hearts and Souls” will be organizing free surgery for Freda in San Antonio, Texas USA.!!
Dr Kirk and team have successfully provided minimal invasive approach to repairing congenital heart defect for 13 PNG children at our PIH cath lab and arranged treatment for 2 very complicated children at the Mayo clinic in the US.
Freda‘s family prayers ensured that I read your post on FB ( I don’t do FB regularly anymore) and was able to contact Dr Kirk before he and his team left Moresby this afternoon, upon completion of their second mission at PIH.
We will contact the patient and you once we receive more information from US.
I trust the Kokoda track foundation will be able support the travel expenses for the girl and a guardian.
FB has received bad press recently for invasion if privacy and manipulations etc but I am glad it connected us to help this girl and hopefully save her life!
God bless
Dr Amyna
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by Charlie | Apr 6, 2019 | CHARLIE LYNN, OUR PHILANTHROPY
Network Kokoda – a non-for-profit company established to honour our wartime heritage in Papua New Guinea – held it’s inaugural Anzac ‘For Valour’ luncheon in Parliament House Sydney on 5 April 2019. Keynote speaker was former Major-General, Senator Jim Molan AO DSC. The following presentation by founding Chairman and current Director of Network Kokoda, The Hon Charlie Lynn OAM OL (PNG), outlines the reasons for the establishment of the organization’
Mr Chairman, trekkers and guests,
I’ve have been involved with Papua New Guinea for the past 28 years and I believe I’m just starting to learn about the place. If you listen to the negatives about the place you probably wouldn’t ever want to go there – but after you’ve been a couple of times it’s hard to stay away.
Papua New Guinea forms part of Melanesia – the island chain to our immediate north.
Melanesia is a Greek term for ‘Black Islands’. It comprises West Papua with 4 million people; Papua New Guinea with 8½ million; the Solomon Islands with ¾ of a million and Fiji with 1 million – a total of 14 million who live on almost 1000 islands speaking 1000 of the World’s 6000 languages and as close as 5 kilometres from our shoreline.
It’s a land immensely rich in natural resources but at the bottom of almost every international index in regard to human wellbeing.
According to one writer it’s a place where paradox prevails:
‘Where arse grass and penis gourds mix with Hugo Boss suits and rolex watches. Where some men mine the hearts of volcanos looking for gold while others worship the spirits of ancestral crocodiles. (more…)
by Charlie | Feb 8, 2019 | OUR PHILANTHROPY
Network Kokoda is proud to announce 20 scholarships for students from Western Sydney University (WSU) to allow them to participate in a 12 day study program at the Iaowari High School on the Sogeri Plateau in Papua New Guinea.
The scholarship program is a collaborative project in partnership with the Hawkesbury Campus of Western Sydney University, Richmond Rotary, Network Kokoda and DFAT. It is being funded by the Australian Government’s new Colombo Plan and is the first project of its kind in Papua New Guinea under the plan.
The scholarship provides WSU students from all disciplines with the opportunity to travel to PNG and will showcase and highlight our shared wartime history and the legacy of our veterans. Students will connect with a diverse group of local organisations including Network Kokoda, Sogeri Community Resource Centre and Iarowari High School and work on local projects aligned to their area of interest and/or discipline for credit. These activities will include:
- Australian World War 2 history including a day trek on the Kokoda Trail and an overnight camp on Goldie River
- Cultural immersion activities, ‘Tok Pisin’ language lessons and community development workshops
- Site tour of Varirata National Park for bird watching and war monuments
- Week long internship/project with local partners: Sogeri Community Resource Centre, Iarowari High School and Network Kokoda
This new partnership is the culmination of a long association between Network Kokoda and Iaowari High School.
Our association with the school started with a chance meeting with a group of female teachers at the school in early 2010. They had all studied agriculture but the subject was not taught at the school because they could not secure their gardens and their produce ‘kept going missing’ soon after the seedlings had matured. (more…)
by Charlie | Nov 25, 2018 | 4. ADVENTURE KOKODA, CHARLIE LYNN, OUR PHILANTHROPY
Adventure Kokoda is proud to announce a $10,000 (K25,000) donation to Network Kokoda to support our ongoing philanthropic work along the Kokoda Trail. This donation has been made possible through the support of those great Australians who chose to trek with us in 2018 – tenk yu tru olgeta!
We have also been advised that Network Kokoda has been approved as an authorised charity by Good2Give – this means that if you work for any of the companies listed below you can make a small tax-deductable donation from your pay and the company will forward it directly to Network Kokoda – to sign in all you have to do is click here.
You might also like to contact the manager in charge of their workplace charities to see if they will seek donations from their employees as many will have a link to PNG or veterans who fought in the War in the Pacific.
If you don’t belong to one of the listed companies you can click on the Donate button on our Network Kokoda website.
This year we completed the TB Isolation Ward at the Popondetta Hospital in partnership with the Oro Development Project as well as a Commercial Fish Farm at the Iaowari High School in partnership with Richmond Rotary. We have also established a partnership with the PNG MiBank to run financial literacy classes for the women’s groups on the Sogeri Plateau. We have also established a partnership with the PNG Ginigoada Foundation to run classes for women in literacy, sewing, cooking and village agriculture. All the classes are conducted in the Womens’ Learning Centre we built next door to the Sogeri Lodge.
We have also been successful in obtaining approval from the Colombo Plan to fund 25 academics and students from the University of Western Sydney to be deployed to Iaowari High School for two week periods over the next three years.
Over the past 12 months we have evacuated three village families from across the trail for urgent medical treatment at the Pacific International Hospital.
We still have much to do but we need some regular donations to allow us to meet the demands for help from villagers along the trail. If all of our past trekkers were to donate the equivalent cost of a cup of coffee each day we would be able to meet most of these demands.
‘Can you spare us a cuppa Dig?’
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by tracie watson | Sep 28, 2018 | OUR PHILANTHROPY
Network Kokoda has established a Memo of Understanding with PNGs MiBank to provide financial literacy training for the local community at our Sogeri Women’s Learning Centre.
MiBank is a grassroots financial institution licensed by the Bank of Papua New Guinea (BPNG) to provide a savings opportunity for subsistence villagers and small business people in the informal economy.
Our initial financial literacy course involved 24 women and two young men from Sogeri, Vesilogo, Owers Corner, Crystal Rapids and Sirinumu village areas.
Subjects covered included:
- Savings: You can do it
- Savings: What are they and why save?
- Savings: How to set goals
- Budgeting: Using money wisely
- Importance of budgeting
- How to make a budget
- Mobile Banking: Understanding the benefits of MiCash
The course was facilitated by Mr Oggie Erehe, our Field Manager for Network Kokoda, and conducted under the auspices of Genevieve Daniels and Steve Ereman. Genevieve is the Manager – Digital Financial Services for MiBank. (more…)
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