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I grow them on the other side of the mountain and sell them for K5 per bunch.

I can make from K50 to K100 a day.

You would normally see a lot of us, standing together to sell our strawberries but my peers are still up there in their homes.

• Mama Helen, Daulo, EHP 

However, things started to change and I was working long hours and the work was getting less and less enjoyable every day and I felt burned out most of the time and I had been wanting to resign for almost a year. I was the bread winner of my family so it was not an easy decision to just up and quit. Anyway, after thinking about it and pushing through for a year, I decided to resign and take a break before searching for a new job. So I did. I resigned in August of 2018. But I needed money so I decided to try freelancing a try.

Leeroy Kamau 21, Brendan Baul 21, Benjamin Aliel 24, Cellian Taubuso 26, Morgan Tobeno 24, Jonah Theo 21 and Christopher Penni 25. The bond was through high school and they met on the tracks again. They’ve been training for four years on the track. They are coached by Nelson Stone, a former PNG and Pacific Games track champion. Leeroy & Benjamin will be taking part in the Nationals from the 4^th – 6^th December 2020 in Port Moresby.

- Athletes, Port Moresby. 

I plant kaukau and after I eat some, I take the leftovers to sell for K1 a group.

Money from my sales goes to buying salt, tinned fish and Maggi cube.

I have an only daughter who got married to a man here at Koge, Simbu Province.

I am from Gunagi. If I have money, I pay K5 PMV fare to go home but most times, I walk home.

By the time I get there, my knees will start to hurt, including my back.

I can only start walking again if I boil water to massage my knees. Otherwise, the pain will just be unbearable.

• Maria Ma, Simbu

I tell myself that if I progress as a pastor and have a church, I will call my church, “Kingdom Generation Church.”

I left school at grade 8. My father enrolled me in a TVET school. He also enrolled me in FODE but then I started drinking beer, smoking and taking drugs and I never completed grade 9 but I did complete my TVET.  

I wanted to change so I went and got baptized but this didn’t change me. I was still bound in this pitiful life. How will I change, I wonder?

I was a deacon in the church and I follow God. 

I am fourteen years old. While I am at home, I help my mother in the trade store. We sell the basics like oil, noodles, rice and sugar and other days I help when she is selling cooked food at her market stall. When I grow up I want to become a nurse and help people when they are sick, my people here in Jiwaka.

- Theresa Johan, Jiwaka Province 

I left the Southern Highlands in 1998 and moved to Western Highlands in search of job opportunities. Luckily, I found a job at the Western Highlands Provincial Works office as a casual security guard. I worked there diligently and also washed fleet vehicles and doing other tasks as well. I am 43 years old and a father of four children; in 2016, I applied for a position of a regional driver and he got the job. While I always worked as a security guard, I was keen to become a driver, so while I took on the job of washing the office vehicles, I learnt how to drive.

I was just 17 when I started my teaching career. I graduated from Madang teachers college in 1979, and was sent in 1980 to Oro Province, to Sasembata Primary School, at the foot of Mt. Lamington.

Due to housing problems I was living with my head teacher, Mr. Gordon Veata, and another single male teacher, Mr. Timothy from North Solomon Province.

The School is located 50 metres from a cliff, below the cliff was a small stream which runs over very big rocks.

I left in the middle of Grade 10 and started working as a waitress.

From there I went to work on a diving boat, assisting as a caterer.

I then went back to school to take up tourism and hospitality but never managed to complete it.

I did a number of odd jobs until joining the Manolos Aviation as a handy girl. I would do grounds work, assist in housekeeping or any task that needed to be done. I learnt a lot of things in the process.