Elizabeth Tandoa is an expressive arts teacher at Gerehu Secondary School who is using all of her talents to preserve and promote Papua New Guinean culture.
A professional multimedia artist, Tandoa earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Queensland University of Technology through the Australia Awards Scholarship Program.
In the classroom and online she finds ways to make traditional culture relevant to new audiences. By incorporating dance, music, and arts from the country’s diverse provinces into the curriculum, she is ensuring the next generation will value their heritage.
It’s a digital world, and social media is accessed by people from all walks of life, all over the globe. ‘Social media is the best platform for sharing content about PNG culture,” the singer-songwriter says.
Currently working on a Facebook page to promote Papua New Guinean culture and the contemporary artists keeping it alive, she states, “People access other pages such to read about the issues currently affecting the country, the same concept can be applied to promoting our culture.
“Just one little upload can have a lot of impacts. We have so many beautiful things to expose to the rest of the world. And our culture is one of them.
“PNG culture is continually evolving, by consistently uploading to social media, ‘[we] will send positive messages and it can change an individual to be a good, responsible citizen. Our culture plays a vital role in informing a person’s upbringing”.
Striving to impart the importance of culture to every generation, Tandoa continues to increase her social media footprint with well-produced videos of original songs shared on Facebook and Vimeo.
Find her at facebook.com/people/Elizabeth-Tandoa/
