Buk bilong Pikinini (BbP) has been in partnership with the Swiss Embassy in Canberra for more than six years and is now looking forward to embarking on a new project to carry out teacher training for school teachers in Eastern Highlands Province.
Yasmine Chatila Zwahlen - Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, and Special Envoy of Switzerland for the Pacific Region signed the new agreement with BbP Founder Anne-Sophie Hermann in Canberra recently.
The new agreement will be to a support Swiss Foundation NGO based in EHP, with capacity development training for their school-teachers.
The training will be in BbP’s highly efficient Early Childhood Development program and School Library management.
The training includes lessons in phonics routines, early childhood literacy and numeracy, management of classroom settings, lesson planning and delivery, positive behavior management in the classroom and much more.
The teachers will also be supported to run library classes and manage a school library.
In addition to providing the training, BbP will also provide the teachers and schools with curriculum handbooks, teaching aids and guides in BbP’s Early Childhood Literacy and Numeracy program, BbP published class room reader sets, phonics books as well as a School Library kit which contains 1000 books in all categories.
“The Embassy of Switzerland has been collaborating with Buk bilong Pikinini for over 6 years now and supported a number of very successful projects. Through this partnership, Switzerland has had a defining impact on the lives of girls and boys, including vulnerable children. I find it particularly important that our new project builds on the professional development of teachers, mostly women. They assume a huge responsibility towards the youngest generation and I find it very important to value, encourage and acknowledge their role,” said Ambassador Zwahlen.
Throughout the partnership, the Swiss Embassy has assisted BbP with funding to build a library on Tatana Island, providing School Library Kits to remote schools, re-stocking the Bui Iebi Prison library near Mendi and has provided funding for the development of the teacher training program.
The teacher training program offered will be certain to have a real impact on the teachers’ ability to deliver their teaching in a more efficient way and allow the children to greatly improve their literacy and numeracy skills.
BbP works with partners to provide teacher training, classroom materials and books to teachers and schools across the country. For more information about the training, teaching aids or School Library Kits please contact Buk bilong Pikinini.