Scholarships for young PNG women

The Miss Pacific Islands Pageant (MPIP) PNG has formed a partnership with the IBSUniversity in PNG to offer young women in the country scholarships of up to K2.1 million for the next five years, starting this year.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to seal the partnership was signed on Tuesday by the founder of the IBSUniversity, Sir Mick Nades, and Chairperson of the MPIP PNG Committee, Molly O’Rourke, at the IBSUniversity campus at 11-Mile, outside Port Moresby.

The fully-funded scholarships, to be known as “IBS Founder’s Scholarships”, celebrate Sir Mick Nades’ 75th birthday this year and MPIP PNG’s 10th anniversary.

The scholarship encompasses the following:

  • Five full scholarships for degree program
  • Five full scholarships for online diploma
  • Five full scholarships for certificate 4
  • Five full scholarships for certificate 3

The disciplines for the scholarships are accounting, business, information technology and human resource management.

Chairperson of the MPIP PNG Committee, O’Rourke, expressed her gratitude to Sir Mick and the IBSUniversity particularly because MPIP PNG is not offering any scholarships to young women this year.

“We are humbled and blessed that IBSUniversity has become our partner and a major sponsor of MPIP PNG. Due to COVID-19, MPIP PNG did not stage a pageant last year and could not raise funds for the scholarship fund.

“This partnership with IBSUniversity means we can continue to empower our young women through education this year. It also means we can broaden our scope for scholarships to other areas such as accounting, business, information technology and human resource disciplines which we normally do not cover,” O’Rourke added.

O’Rourke said the MPIP PNG Committee would be honoured to co-ordinate the scholarships with IBSUniversity through publicity on Miss PNG Pacific Islands Pageant Facebook page, which has over 60,000 followers.

“We believe strongly in education as a means to empower young women in PNG,” she said.

“Our scholarship fund began in 2012 and went from strength to strength with requests from girls around the country growing every year.

“In 2019 alone, we awarded assistance to the value of K200,000 – reaching a total of over K1 million worth of scholarships awarded to over 400 brilliant young women in the priority areas of health, education and agriculture to young women in their 3rd and final years of study.

“The Ruby Anne Laufa Award for study at the Legal Training Institute (LTI) PNG was also established in 2018. This Award is in memory of Miss Papua New Guinea 2012-13, Ruby Anne Laufa who passed away in tragic GBV circumstances while a student at LTI.”

(MPIP PNG and IBSU teams after the signing of the deal)

Author: 
Press release