Comments

Thank you Gure. I have set up this concept for the sake of our people, the future of our children. Now I'm waiting for someone, a donor ageny or a visionary PNG govt to fund so we can take the necessary steps to provide real help as per village coffee website to millions of coffee growers.

Thanks Stephen – it sounds like this experience was a refreshing reality check. It was interesting (and wonderful) to hear their comment that the CARE-supported NGO club ‘gives them fun’. I often wonder about how happy people like these six Vietnamese women are. So, a bit like your comparative figures on incomes and poverty, I did a quick search of general national happiness indexes (... with all the qualifiers ...) and I found that Vietnam ranked way above Australia in one report (UK think tank the New Economics Foundation) and far less happy in other reports (e.g. UN).

Thomas, I am currently researching UNDP's Human Security - people-centred approach. I would like to be in contact with you to discuss the 'human-centred' approach.

Well said Richard, thank you.

Thanks so much for your comments Mini. Do please also share some of your amazing experiences, achievements and dreams ... encouraging each other is also key ... 🙂

Excellent concept, Village Coffee by Pana Wiya. I was with PNG ADB Microfinance Project providing microbanking and financial management training support services and now am back on the ground into coffee business. Some facts that made me move into coffee. 1. 97% of PNG's land ownership is customary. Over 60% of PNG coffee export volume is contributed by small holder coffee farmers mostly from organic farms. 2/3rds of our 7.5 million population is supported by coffee income. Coffee consumers prefer organically farmed coffee and further more health researchers continue to promote coffee consumption beneficial. Agriculture sector in particular coffee industry is a sleeping giant in PNG. In my recent past experience in coffee, the idea of putting together farmers in cooperative system is the way to go in order to increase export volume further. There are two things that are of crucial importance and have seriously been lacking. 1. Adequate financial and capital support for farmers. 2. Financial management training and banking support. I have noticed some support both from government and from donor agencies coming into the country for the coffee industry. In such funding, support, I notice one impeding factor: Corruption and self interest by officers that are put in there to manage. Finally, I like the concept established and I you all the best in marketing the concept to potential funding agencies and governments. I am keen also to provide moral support.

On a closely related note, I happened to see that there is a documentary film focused on the Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre, called 'The Staging Post'. It's screening in Canberra tonight (27 July 2017) - details <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/return-canberra-screening-of-the-staging-post-tickets-36031654649?aff=efbeventtix" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>.

Really nice to hear about these initiatives. I've been following the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisaruarefugeelearningcentre/" rel="nofollow">Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre on Facebook</a> for some time, which is the one you mention in West Java I believe, and it is really wonderful to see what they are doing. It's also great to see their connections with Australian teachers associations and international schools in Jakarta - it just further shows that there is broad-based community support for what refugees are experiencing despite the toxic rhetoric of the Australian government. It makes a lot of sense to support refugee children with education for so many reasons - if they are settled, they won't be years behind in their schooling. Schools are important parts of communities, which seems even more important in marginalised communities. And having something for them to do each day surely has mental health and social benefits.

The best read of the day! Congratulations Robyn and Darryl on expressing the sentiments of a number of scientists who can totally relate to this. For us who grew up in the Global era, these times of exclusion and self-centeredness evoke a lot of apprehension and disappointment! Therefore it's good to see that all hope is not lost, and there are ways this can be fixed, but only if we take positive action now!

My observation over 30 years of advocacy on women's issues regarding domestic violence, GBV, CEDAW, FSV and Children's issues on CRC and all forms of abuse is such that at least in PNG when planning to involve men on a long term base there are several areas women leaders should concentrate. a) there are a very few men in society who have natural and in-built interest on women's issues. It is in your best interest to identify among mature men, those who had been victims of similar situations as children. b) when you have identified these men, they become your best ambassadors to influence other men known to them through their social affiliations whether in sports, music, politics, academy, work mate etc... c) acknowledge in a special way the 'long term participation of men as male advocates among you' through constant and continued invitations to your activities, provide small incentives like traveling, presenting papers in workshops (they do not have to be lawyers, doctors or politicians, just ordinary men), leading discussions on specific topics to address common social issues, making encouraging comments, allowing them to be recognized through community social promotional activities - male advocate of the year, Champion of GVB etc... Especially in PNG but also in other societies, men are attracted to good food on the table and a little cash incentive, not much, but let him feel he is being recognized as a man supporting women's advocacy. I am sharing with you as a child victim and later as a mature man trying to assist women in my country. Men who are invited will come, they will mingle around, listen and when there is no incentive, the general feeling is 'ah, em toktok bilong ol meri ya', when they leave, you have lost him. I share with you as the longest male advocate before and during the establishment of the Eastern Highlands Family Voice's as a member of the Board of Directors, as first chairman of the FSVAC in Goroka, as founder of the PNG's National Federation of Catholic Men and as a Champion peace brochure in the community in Eastern Highlands to this day. In PNG the two longest male advocates remain as Lorence Funmat of the Kokopo Police station in East New Britain Province (he is from New Ireland) and I am from Manus, a researcher in childhood diseases with the PNG Institute of Medical Research based in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province. Other men have come and gone, either because it is a requirement within their employment (which must be encouraged) or because they have just come to 'see whats happening' and 'whats in it for them'. Treasure the small number of long term male advocates you have among you and the scale of injustice in society will improve. Gerard Saleu Goroka Papua New Guinea

Well done Robyn and Darryl You mix an excellent analysis of the current situation (globally) with politics and social trends and views on science and its acceptance. We now suffer on one hand an almost religious zeal around science and technologies as solutions to our myriad and growing problems, that you highlight but I fear science is not capable of solving basic human weaknesses, emotional confusion, fear, unpredictability and anti-social and anti- environment behaviours which lie at the root of many of the modern challenges. The development of laagers at different scales including academic ones and all of their unfortunate prejudice and discrimination is a byproduct and we must resist this withdrawal into the monastery! I share your view on academic humility (if there is such a thing lurking somewhere!) as a powerful force to reinvigorate the connection between the teacher and the student and society at large. And it would be a great thing if some of our more enlightened politicians would take a stand and help to re-build the relationship between science and society, especially targeting those less fortunate and marginalised. They need good science more than any.

Please be mindful of your wording on the title. Not "Men". It should be "Some Men". Good article though.