Everyday people PNG

“One of my other interests is in fixing cars, and although I work with Air Niugini, I have turned this interest into a business.” 

I was winner of Digicel Stars 2019.

I vividly remember going to the audition on the 19^th of October 2019 at the Lae International Hotel.

I was amongst hundreds that day, hoping to be selected by the judges.

I stood in line from 8:30am till 6pm in the afternoon, before finally facing the three main judges.

To my surprise, I was the first to be selected.

I started music at a very young age in church and studied it all throughout my primary and high school years.

I live at 8-Mile in my family home with my brother and his family.

I have two children, an 11 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. 

I work as an Admin & Accounts Assistant with Sesago Health Care.

I learnt how to do my job-first at Supreme Industries and then now with SEsago, for seven years now.

I find life as a single mum very challenging because I provide for my kids on my own.

But comparing life now, and from the relationship I came out from, I feel that life is much better, because my relationship with my kids’ father was very abusive. 

I would have been 25 years old at the time.

In Bougainville, my brother Peter had a building company.

He brought me over to work and having met the people and travelled around this beautiful place, I fell in love with it all.

I asked my brother if I could stay and since then I never left.

After 6 months I managed to get my wife over and it’s been quite the journey for us both for the past 50 years.

Music for me started way back in Germany, so in Bougainville, it wasn’t long before I began the search for musicians two weeks after I had arrived there.

Now with the COVID-19 lockdown and suspension of schools, two of my oldest children, aged 6 and 5, are not in school and daycare and are with me at home. So it has been a struggle juggling taking care of the kids and working on my side hustles. I sew, do beadwork for earing and necklaces and sell lunch packs as well.

Famaco is building the US Embassy Compound in Konedobu.

I worked with Famaco three years now going on four. 

Now US Embassy advertised some positions and I applied but they are waiting for my Covid-19 test results.

If it’s negative than I will get my report and go and give it to the US embassy to consider me for that job. 

It’s almost two weeks now since I was sent home.

I’m not sure if I will be getting paid or not so I’ll just wait and see what happens. 

I was the valedictorian of the graduating class and the recipient of the Brot Fűr Die Welt award for research excellence and the St. Joseph Moscati prize for academic excellence.

Prior to that, I graduated from the Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, with a Master’s degree in Medical Science in Immunology and Infectious Disease after getting my degree at the University of Papua New Guinea.

This journey isn’t my own. I owe this to all those who stood by me throughout my lowest and have shared my joy when dark clouds passed.

I am 46 years old and lived in Port Moresby all my life. There are five of us in the family, two girls and three boys. Two of them have passed away and there are three of us left. I’ve got two children, sons. I am self-employed. I don’t do much but I buy vegetables from Gordons market and re-sell where we live.

Traveling out of the country for the first time was never in her wildest dreams admitted  Lae based female rugby league player Lydia Luke who said she was scared and shocked when she was selected into the PNG Orchids squad for a trial match against the Brisbane Boncos women’s team in Brisbane in 2018. But she never regretted she took the opportunity with both hands.

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I am married to Christopher Dai, he’s from Tubuserea and Kerema and he works with Digicel Play box team. We’ve been married for 5 years now but we were in relationship for a long time.

I have two beautiful kids, a girl and a boy.  The girl is 5 years old, and she’s doing her first year of schooling at Taurama kindergarten. The boy is two, turning 3 so he’s just at home.