PNG Children’s Foundation rescues Tembari kids’ schoolchildren

Wardstrip Demonstration headmistress Mrs Lynette Turia (left) receives a cheque for K4,400.00 from Mea Lou, vice-president of the PNG Children’s Foundation, at a school fee turn-over ceremony at Lamana Hotel last Friday. The cheque covered the school fees of 44 children from Tembari Children’s Care (TCC), the second biggest batch sponsored by the foundation, which spent K35,628 this year for school fees. (More pictures after story)

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

THE PNG Children’s Foundation has rescued 48 Tembari children from going back to the street by paying for their school fees this year.

Another 21 Tembari kids whose ages ranged from 13 and above, have also been rescued. Their school fees have been paid for by the funds raised by Rishabh Bhandari, Founder and Co-President of TCC, while he is in the USA.

Meanwhile, the school fees of another five kids who have been considered too old for preschool –they aged 13 and above and therefore have to be bumped off to join the primary school level – have been paid for by The Center, using some funds received last year from donors.

This year, the cost of educating 74 children from Tembari Children Care (TCC) amounted to a total of K11,300.

These are the children who have been discarded from the school fee program of WeCare!, a foundation operated by retired priest John Glynn, who felt they did not deserve his continued support. Anyway, last school year, his foundation paid the school fees of some 40 Tembari children.

During a simple ceremony at the Lamana Hotel last Friday, the Children’s Foundation’s vice-president Mea Lou turned over a cheque for K4,400 to Mrs Lynette Turia, headmistress of Wardship Demostration Elementary School at Gordons.

The payment covered 44 Tembari children in the elementary level.

Another cheque for K920 covering four kids was also turned over to the headmaster of the New Erima Primary School.

Tembari’s 69 elementary and primary school children are part of the 233 that the Children’s Foundation has sponsored year, spread out to 30 elementary and primary schools around Port Moresby.

In all, this year’s sponsored school fees cost the Children Foundation K35,628, and the covering cheques were distributed last Friday to respective headmasters of 30 schools where the children have been enrolled.

“PNG children,” says Yiannis Nicolaou, president of Children’s Foundation, “have better opportunities to be educated through educational sponsorships.”

In a statement, Yiannis said school children from low-income families and those who are orphaned and abandoned are the main beneficiaries of the foundation.

Mrs Nene Sta Cruz, adviser to the foundation, said this year’s sponsorships have covered 233 students compared to last year’s only 200.

She explained that the foundation’s mandated beneficiaries are school children with ages up to 12 years old.

“Children with ages above 12 are no longer children … they have become teen-agers …” Mrs Sta Cruz said in jest, as she explained to school headmasters and head mistresses the foundation’s target clients.

Incidentally, Nene is the project manager of Kids’ Haven, a shelter for abandoned and abused children based in Port Moresby, which is a beneficiary of the PNG Children’s Foundation.

When we first approached Nene Sta Cruz about our kids school fee problem after they were dropped from the school fee program of WeCare! whose big boss, retired priest John Glynn, has had this mistaken notion that Tembari is getting a lot of funding -- his main reason why he stopped the payment for their school fees this year – she told us: “Don’t worry … we’ll take care of your children …”

And during a PNG Children’s Foundation function last Christmas, I happened to meet Yiannis Nicolaou and discussed with him our activities at Tembari Center.

Yiannis, the Big Boss at Lamana Hotel – a tourism-oriented concern which has seen progress by leaps and bounds over the years, which is right now trying its best to cope with its growing corporate and tourism clientele -- assured me of his support in providing education to Tembari children.


Cheers to that!

Tembari kids rejoice after it was announced that their school fees have been arranged with their school.

Nene Sta Cruz, adviser to the PNG Children’s Foundation, signs a document covering a cheque donation for school fees. (All pictures by ALFREEDO P HERNANDEZ)

Email the writer: alfredophernandez@thenational.com
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