Digicel PNG Foundation hosted a three-day workshop for 20 Men of Honour (MoH) award recipients for capacity building to effectively campaign against violence.
Foundation Chief Executive Officer, Beatrice Mahuru, said the Men of Honour Award is Digicel PNG Foundation’s innovative campaign against violence in PNG.
“Through our Men of Honour campaign, we are asking Papua New Guineans to identify positive male role models in their communities. In honouring the good men of Papua New Guinea, we can use positive behaviour to create the world we want to see.
The workshop that took place at the Digicel Learning and Development Centre, Gordon’s, saw the 15 current award recipients and the five previous winners of each category go through intensive and thought provoking discussions on truly understanding the roles of men in the community.
Facilitators invited to talk to these Men of Honour Ambassadors included Warrior Culture’s Eddie Aila of Aila Consultants, Fr. Phillip Gibbs of the Divine Word University, Eddie Sukanaivalu of Digicel Learning Centre and Christine Moses of the United Church.
Topics included in the workshop were understanding violence, impacts of good men on women and children and roles of men in the society. There were much discussion on the issue of violence, especially understanding how they, as recognised Men of Honour, can effectively communicate to change the communities for the better.
“Our workshop opened my eyes to understand and identify violence in all its forms and how the Family Protection Bill plays an import role in addressing this, but as honourable men, we can do something before it gets to that,” said Andrew Bubu, the 2015/16 Men of Honour.
“The Foundation aims to break the cycle of violence through focusing on positive behaviour for affirmative action,” the Foundation said in a statement.
“These awards are character based and not achievement based. Moreover, recipients become MOH Ambassadors and go on a journey with Digicel PNG Foundation Team, sharing their inspiring stories to campaign against violence in a scheduled roadshow nationwide.”
Nominations for the 2016/17 Men of Honour Awards was launched in May this year and will close on Wednesday, November 30, 2016.
To date, Digicel PNG Foundation has funded 484 classrooms and 15 libraries, 23 Mobile Health Clinics, six rural Health Aid Posts, three Women’s Resource Centres, co-funded five Family Support Centres in partnership with UNICEF and NDoH.
“So far, we have 10 winners, 30 finalists and 162 nominations. Digicel PNG Foundation appreciates that change is not going to happen overnight, but it will happen.
“Established in October 2008, Digicel PNG Foundation has directly invested K65 million in PNG’s rural, remote and socially marginalised communities across all 22 provinces, directly impacting over 500,000 people.”
(2015/16 Men of Honour Awards overall winner, Andrew Bubu, during the awards Gala night in April.)