 | |
| Type | Educational Charity |
|---|---|
| Website | ktf |
The Kokoda Track Foundation (KTF) is an international aid organisation working in Papua New Guinea. The foundation was established in 2003 and supports the indigenous people of that country. The Foundation provides education, health, and community service programmes such as disaster relief, microbusiness promotion and sustainable ecotourism. [1] [2] [3]
The Kokoda Track Foundation is an Australian not-for-profit organisation that works with the communities living along and around the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Following its formation in 2003, the KTF funded and prepared a Strategic Plan for Tourism for the Kokoda Track. The Kokoda Track Foundation lobbied for, and on 11 June 2003, the PNG government established, the Kokoda Track Special Purpose Authority (KTA). The KTA's first action was the development of an ecotrekking strategy to enable the people along the track "to optimise the benefits from tourism and enable them to take a leading role in their own development". [4] The Foundation initially started provided young children in PNG with school scholarships. Over the years, the Foundation increased its support to include other areas of health, education and welfare. [5]
The Chairman of KTF is Ian Kemish and the CEO is Genevieve Nelson. [6] Board members include Yahoo Serious and Bill James (co-founder of Flight Centre). [6]
The foundation currently works in four main areas: education, health, community development and micro-business.
The Foundation supports elementary, primary, secondary and tertiary students with Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel Scholarships. [5] The scholarships cover students' tuition fees, educational resources and uniform, food, and boarding (where applicable). In 2014, the Foundation provided more than 450 students with Scholarships.
The Kokoda College is a planned state-of-the-art training facility based in remote Kou Kou village. It will offer courses in Elementary & Primary Teaching and Community Health Work. [7]
The Foundation has trained more than 60 elementary teachers and assisted members of the communities to train as primary teachers via the PNG Diploma of Primary Teaching. [5] These teachers will return to their home villages to operate the schools after they have graduated from the course.
In 2014, KTF continued to support 43 elementary, primary and secondary schools with educational resources including textbooks and library books, stationery, teacher resources, furniture, and general maintenance for classrooms. [5] [8]
The Foundation's Archer Leadership Scholars program, funded by the Fred P. Archer Charitable Trust, annually awards scholarships to six tertiary students in PNG who have demonstrated exceptional academic abilities, promising leadership skills and a desire to go on to future leadership roles in PNG. [5] [9] [10]
The Kokoda Track Foundation is currently supporting nine students from villages along the Kokoda Track to train as Community Health Workers at various schools of nursing throughout the country. Once qualified, these community members return to their home village and operate the local aid post. The foundation funds the salaries of Community Health Workers along the Track to ensure that aid posts and health centres remain open and health services are available to local villagers. The foundation also funds and delivers vital drugs and medical resources to aid posts and health centres in the Kokoda Track catchment area including the Kokoda Memorial Hospital. [5] [11] [12]
This year the foundation is continuing the Pawa Givim Meri project in eleven villages along the Kokoda Track. Via Pawa Givim Meri, small business workshops, cooking classes, and literacy training are run with women's groups in villages, assisting them to earn an income from the trekking industry. The women are establishing permanent shop fronts from which they can sell their food and products like solar lights to passing trekkers. [13] [14]
The Kokoda Track Foundation delivers one solar light for every adult along the track. To date, this has been a total of 4,500 lights. Solar lighting has enormous benefits for communities and helps to alleviate poverty, improve health, and enhance educational opportunities for young children. Communities have been given a vital source of light that is changing lives. [5] [15]
The foundation has responded to disasters, including flooding and cyclones in the volatile Oro Province. In January 2013, KTF responded to severe flooding that submerged the food gardens of thousands of villagers. KTF arranged the delivery of rice and tinned fish to hundreds of villages during the crucial periods when their food gardens were submerged and could not be accessed.
Immediately following the formation of the Kokoda Track Foundation, KTF funded and prepared a Strategic Plan for Tourism for the Kokoda Track and lobbied for PNG government support of the plan. [4] The plan focuses on the environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of tourism development. KTF now partners with key groups to ensure appropriate implementation of the plan and to ensure that local communities benefit from the growing trekking industry. [16] [17]
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. It shares its only land border with Indonesia to the west and it is directly adjacent to Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).
The Kokoda Track or Trail is a single-file foot thoroughfare that runs 96 kilometres (60 mi) overland – 60 kilometres (37 mi) in a straight line – through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The track was the location of the 1942 World War II battle between Japanese and Allied – primarily Australian – forces in what was then the Australian territory of Papua.
Kokoda is a station town in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea. It is famous as the northern end of the Kokoda Track, site of the eponymous Kokoda Track campaign of World War II. In that campaign, it had strategic significance because it had the only airfield along the Track. In the decades preceding, it had been a foothills settlement near the gold fields.
Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels was the name given by Australian soldiers to Papua New Guinean war carriers who, during World War II, were recruited or forced into service to bring supplies up to the front and carry injured Australian troops down the Kokoda trail during the Kokoda Campaign. "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" was originally used by British soldiers in the 19th century as a name for Hadendoa warriors on the Red Sea coast of the Sudan, and referred to their elaborate butter-matted hairstyles.
The Kokoda Track campaign or Kokoda Trail campaign was part of the Pacific War of World War II. The campaign consisted of a series of battles fought between July and November 1942 in what was then the Australian Territory of Papua. It was primarily a land battle, between the Japanese South Seas Detachment under Major General Tomitarō Horii and Australian and Papuan land forces under command of New Guinea Force. The Japanese objective was to seize Port Moresby by an overland advance from the north coast, following the Kokoda Track over the mountains of the Owen Stanley Range, as part of a strategy to isolate Australia from the United States.
The Black Cat Track or Trail is a rough overland track in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. It runs from the village of Salamaua on the coast of the Huon Gulf, south into the mountains to the township of Wau. In the 21st century despite being a difficult journey it became a hiking destination for international trekkers.
Papua New Guinea together with the West Papua region of Indonesia make up a major tropical wilderness area that still contains 5% of the original and untouched tropical high-biodiversity terrestrial ecosystems. PNG in itself contains over 5% of the world's biodiversity in less than 1% of the world's total land area. The flora of New Guinea is unique because it has two sources of origin; the Gondwana flora from the south and flora with Asian origin from the west. As a result, New Guinea shares major family and genera with Australia and the East Asia, but is rich in local endemic species. The endemicity is a result of mountainous isolation, topographic and soil habitat heterogeneity, high forest disturbance rates and abundant aseasonal rainfall year round. PNG boasts some 15–21,000 higher plants, 3,000 species of orchids, 800 species of coral, 600 species of fish, 250 species of mammals and 760 species of birds and 8 species of tree-kangaroos out of which 84 genera of animals are endemic. Ecosystems range from lowland forests to montane forests, alpine flora down to coastal areas which contains some of the most extensive pristine mangrove areas in the world. Much of this biodiversity has remained intact for thousands of years because the ruggedness of the terrain made the interior lands inaccessible; furthermore low population density and restrictions on the effectiveness of traditional tools, ensured that these biodiversity was never overexploited.
Sir Michael Thomas Somare was a Papua New Guinean politician. Widely called the "father of the nation", he was the first Prime Minister after independence. At the time of his death, Somare was also the longest-serving prime minister, having been in office for 17 years over three separate terms: from 1975 to 1980; from 1982 to 1985; and from 2002 to 2011. His political career spanned from 1968 until his retirement in 2017. Besides serving as PM, he was minister of foreign affairs, leader of the opposition and governor of East Sepik Province.
Airlines PNG Flight 4684 (CG4682/TOK4684) was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Papua New Guinean airliner Airlines PNG, flying from Jacksons International Airport in Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby to Kokoda Airport in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. On 11 August 2009, the aircraft operating the flight, a de Havilland Canada Twin Otter, crashed into a forest in Kokoda Valley, a popular trekking site in Papua New Guinea, while carrying 13 people in bad weather. A search and rescue operation was conducted by authorities and found the wreckage of the crashed plane on the next day, 12 August 2009. The aircraft was severely damaged, and searchers found no signs of life. Papua New Guinean Search and Rescue Agency then announced that everyone on board was killed instantly in the crash.
Sohe District is a district of the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Kokoda. The population was 86,547 at the 2011 census.
The Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway is a walking track and war memorial located in the suburb of Concord West, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located along Brays Bay on the Parramatta River, and is a unique tribute to the Australian troops who fought in the World War II Papua-New Guinea campaign of July 1942 till December 1943.
The Kokoda Challenge is Australia’s toughest team endurance event, a punishing 96 km of hills and bushwalking that takes place in the Gold Coast Hinterland in July of each year.
Kōkichi Nishimura was a Japanese soldier and businessman who devoted his post-retirement years to traveling to Papua New Guinea to recover the remains of his former comrades and other Japanese soldiers who died during the Second World War. His life was described in the 2008 book The Bone Man of Kokoda by Australian journalist Charles Happell.
Situm is a government ex-servicemen block outside of Lae in Labuta Rural LLG, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.
Charles Abel is an important politician in Papua New Guinea. He has been a member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea from 2007-2022, representing the electorate of Alotau Open. He competed for the regional seat (governor) in Milne Bay Province -of which Alotau is the capital- in 2022 but he lost. Charles Abel has occupied several cabinet positions. He was from 2007-2010 minister of Culture and Tourism. He was Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry in 2011-2012. In the period 2012-2017 he was Minister for National Planning. From August 2017-May 2019 he was Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. In 2019 he was from June–November Minister for Finance and Rural Development. He is an important voice in policy making for natural resources.
Benny Allan is a Papua New Guinean politician. He has been a member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea since 2002, representing the electorate of Unggai-Bena Open, variously as an independent (2002) and for the United Resources Party (2002-2012) and People's National Congress (2012-present). He has been Minister for Lands and Physical Planning in the government of Peter O'Neill since August 2012. Allan previously served as Minister for Environment and Conservation under Michael Somare from 2007 to 2011.
The Westpac Outstanding Women Award recognizes exceptional professional work of women in Papua New Guinea. Since its inception in 2006, when it was called the Westpac Women in Business Award, the Award has recognized the achievements of individual women in multiple categories. Each category awardee then becomes a finalist for the overall WOW Award. In the face of acknowledged gender inequity in the country, the WOW Awards call attention to the crucial and highly skilled work done by women across a number of sectors. The winner of the WOW Award receives a grant to pursue a formal education, professional mentoring, opportunities for professional learning and networking at an Australian Executive Women's Leadership symposium, and a cash prize. The WOW Awards support the belief that investment in women leads to stronger economic outcomes for a nation as a whole, and strives to provide role models for the girls and women of the country.
Dame Jean Lucilla Kekedo is a Papua New Guinean activist who has held senior roles in the country's public service, including that of Ombudsman and High commissioner to the United Kingdom.
In 2019, at the age of 24, Raylance Mesa was the youngest winner of the Westpac Outstanding Woman Award (WOW) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for her work to help her island to adapt to climate change.
Sogeri National High School is a school situated in Sogeri in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It was the country's first national high school and it educates students from all over the country in Forms 5 and 6, prior to their going on to tertiary education. Many of PNG's leading politicians, administrators, business people and academics have been educated at the school. It was described by the country's first prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, himself a former pupil, as "the school that shaped the nation".
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