News

We sent another 50 birthing kits to Kiriwina by Australia Post courier on Friday 5th July. As the last batch that we sent by mail took months to arrive, hopefully paying the courier price will mean they will arrive within weeks (as Australia Post promised). The Kiriwinans have been alerted that the birthing kits are on the way. Thank you Diana and Kylie Adams for packaging the kits and thank you to the Yarralumla Uniting Church in Canberra for their ongoing financial support!!.

Ralph Lawton received his doctorate in linguistics from ANU July 16th 2013! He can now focus on completing his bilingual Kiriwinan dictionary.

We are working on the next lot of birthing kits. We will hopefully be sending these up to Kiriwina by the end of July.

Thank you Toks for letting us know the parcel had arrived, two months after sending. We are looking at using international couriers instead of normal Australia Post options. The Parcel delivery is critical. Thanks again to Diana and Kylie Adams who collated and packed the kits. We have started on the next lot of birthing kits and have been informed that the courier service will only take 2 to 4 business days. I will let you know…

Yippee, another box of kits being sent today.

Dinah (our main contact) is in Bwaruwada at the moment so the Box is being sent to the Pastor’s wife Ruth.

Our VBA’s are all receiving a belated Christmas present of a polar jumper.

We are nearly ready to send the next batch of 50 kits thanks to the assistance of Diana and Kylie Adams who have been working diligently to complete the packing of the kits. Thanks so much Diana and Kylie for all your support.

We are pleased that after a fair bit of negotiating we have appointed Dinah (David) Lepani as the main administrator of the VBA’s on Kiriwina. Congratulations Dina.

The September batch of birthing kits were received by Dina (The Caring for Kiriwina coordinator) on Kiriwina just in time, the Village Health Volunteers only had two birthing kits left! Now we know the high cost of transportion we need to hear from companies out there who travel to Port Morseby regularly and could transport a few of these very small light birthing kits approx. 15 x 10 cm for our charity.

We will start putting the next 50 kits together to transport December/January, we will also include in this package some jumpers for the VHV’s as a Christmas bonus. We also need to thank Toks Bwaina, our Kiriwinan contact in Port Moresby.

We have sent another 50 birthing kits up to Kiriwina by Australia Post. The cost of posting these essential humanitarian items is HUGE. If anyone is travelling to Port Moresby from Sydney and can fit some kits into their luggage, please let us know. We would get the kits to you and a Kiriwinan will pick them up from the airport and deliver them to Kiriwina.

The VHV’s asked for aspirin and panadol, which have been sent. We have also charged up the digicel account so that we can keep in constant contact with the VHV’s via the mobile we sent up for this specific use (Kindly donated by Jeff Keating).

Thank you to Kylie Adams and Liam and Lila Lawton for donating their time to make the kits up.

Some Kiriwians have not been able to obtain entrance into further education in Australia due to the lack of a Birth Certificate/Record. We have decided to place a Birth Certificate form in each birthing kit so that the birth will be formally recorded.