People have to be at the forefront when it comes to development.
The Community Development and Religion Secretary, Anna Solomon, made this statement during the opening of a media sensitisation workshop in Port Moresby today.
“Whether we are building an infrastructure, whether we’re building a hospital – whatever we are building – if we don’t put faces there, we’re still missing the point,” she said. “And when I say faces, I’m talking about disabled people as well, the most vulnerable people. When you talk about children, women, youth, men, elderly, you are still talking about the disabled population because they’re all made up of these different groupings.
“But if we don’t cater for them, then we are still missing the point.”
The secretary says this is where they come in as a department, focusing on marginalised groups, including women and children who are suffering from abuse.
Solomon further said the community development department has been going through a transitional period where they are amending old laws and policies to better suit today’s modern society.
“Assessing the impact in a village has been very difficult, or in a district has been a challenge,” she said. “And that is because we were still dealing with very colonial laws within the department when it came to family, and when it came to community.
“We had the old welfare act. So the last seven years we tried to improve and update these laws to current; what is really Papua New Guinea.”
(Secretary Anna Solomon)