Office space for The Center

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

SINCE The Center does not have access to electricity, we decided to rent a small space at a place near the facility where power is available.

The place is owned by one of the residents at ATS Oro Settlement at Seven Mile which has access to power, just about 500 meters away from The Center.

The owner is willing to provide us a space of 3 meters by 3 meters for K300 a month. Power consumption would be included in the rent, depending on the arrangement.

It is one of those crucial decisions Rishabh Bhandari, Founder and Co-President of TCC, and Penny Sagembo, Co-Founder and Co-President of TCC, have to make because an expense of K300 a month would upset our monthly budget that goes mainly to the daily expenses at The Center.

Renting this office space is the only way for us to deal with the growing backlog in our records that included the profiles of the 97 children under our care, the records of our 45 preschoolers and those of the 42 children attending classes at 11 elementary schools around Port Moresby.

Since The Center is not connected to the settlement’s power grid as the last power post stopped some 400 meters away from where we are located, Penny and/or teachers could not work on the children’s records despite having a notebook (laptop), a facility that was donated to The Center last March.

With no power at home, she could only work an hour at night on her notebook, with illumination coming from kerosene lamp.

The children’s personal records are needed for next year’s enrolment, especially with regards to school fees that WeCaRe!, a foundation, would require to determine whether a particular child in our roster deserves to get its support in terms of school fees.

This school year, WeCaRe! which is operated by retired priest, Fr John Glynn, has paid for the school fees of our 42 children at 11 elementary schools in Port Moresby. Aside from that, 45 of the 97 kids under our care are attending daily preschool classes at The Center under the supervision of three volunteer teachers.

In short, we need to organize the records of these children which we, until now, have been unable to do due to lack of electricity at The Center.

With prospective office space which is wired to the PNG Power grid, we may be able to do a lot in preparing the children’s school records.

Penny could work to update our records by working the night after she knocks off from her Monday-to-Friday day job at an NGO based in Port Moresby and on weekends.

At present, for our makeshift office where we also keep Tembari records and classroom materials, we use one of the classrooms which have been provided by Digicel Foundation.

Fashioned from junk container vans, it also serves as storage for foodstuff donations, tools and cooking utensils.

But again, we have to contend with a lot of expenses which could create a big hole in our modest funds which we were able to raise from small grants and donations.

For instance, that 3x3 meter-office space would require a working desk, a filing cabinet and a computer set along with a printer. This would cost big money and The Center would really struggle to be able to afford all this.

IT IS FOR this reason that we are again appealing for support t from readers out there.

If you think you have a workstation desk that you no longer need and a chair to go with it, please don’t hesitate to donate it to The Center.

If you have an old steel filing cabinet that you have to dispose of for lack of space in your office or at home, please donate it to The Center.

If you have a retired computer set – PC and monitor – that is just lying in the corner because you have already upgraded, please donate it to The Center.

If you think you able enough to sponsor a new set of computer facility which would help us do our job more efficiently, please let us know.

If you feel like helping us with the monthly office space rent of K300, please let us know.

All this will do a lot towards improving the services we provide to the 97 children under are care.

Aged from 1 to 15, they are orphans, abandoned, neglected and unfortunate. We succeeded in plucking them out from the village streets through your continued support.

Email the writer: alfredophernandez@thenational.com.pg
Jarahdz500@online.net.pg
freddiephernandez@yahoo.com