Tembari nearing new highs

Penny Sage-embo (left) thanking corporate sponsors and supporters of Tembari’s daily feeding programme during the day care centre’s ninth anniversary on Saturday. With her is Queen of Tembari Phylis Topogo,14, one of the first beneficiary children who is attending secondary school.-  Nationalpics by ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

 

Corporate guests during Saturday’s celebration that included Marina Van der Vlies (second from left), CEO of Digicel Foundation

By ALREDO P HERNANDEZ

A Friend of Tembari Children

 

THE Tembari Children’s Care (TCC) is on a roll.

The streak of progress that our day care facility has been enjoying since 2010 – the year when corporate sponsors and generous individual donors began arriving in good measure – could reach a higher peak this year.

That is when it finally starts putting up a K100,000-kit classrooms for its preschoolers and elementary schoolchildren.

And soon, it would get a land title to the 3,500-square meter property it occupies at Oro settlement outside of Port Moresby.

During its 9^th anniversary on Saturday, Penny Sage-embo, the founder of Tembari and the facility’s programme coordinator, told me these two milestones, which are now in sight, are making everybody at the center quite upbeat.

Finally after nine years of uphill struggle for recognition from the community hosting its home, Tembari is about to get there, so to speak.

All these were made possible by the sustained support by donors from the corporate world and from individuals who find Tembari’s calling something worthy of support.

It would be appropriate to recall once more that from 2003 to 2009 – a grinding six years in the life of the facility it never received any sustainable funding.

It was fortunate that in 2009, Digicel Foundation took notice of Penny’s endeavor to keep some 78 street children under its wings. That time, Penny was now operating as a day care center and also a preschool for its ward.

Queen of Tembari Phylis Topogo (left) warning a child for being a trouble-maker instead of studying hard in a skit that highlighted the big role of corporate sponsors and supporters in changing their lives – from being village street children to one who are now in school and having proper meals everyday. Topogo,14, who attends secondary school, was herself among the first few abandoned children who were taken in as beneficiary when Tembari Children’s Care was founded as a day care facility in 2003 by Penny Sage-embo. – Photo by ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

The center has provided them a safe playground at its premises and fed them at least three times a week with kaw-kaw, greens and watery cordial.

With support from a few volunteer mothers who had chipped in to buy the foodstuff, Penny was able to keep the mind and soul of these unfortunate children intact and inspired.

And to boost Temabi’s early education program, Digicel Foundation provided it with two community learning centers (CLCs) in the form of container vans fitted into classrooms.

Fast forward to Saturday, the day when Tembari marked its 9^th year as a community-based organization registered with the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA).

Penny said: “We are looking forward to start a K100,000 school building middle of this year.”

“At the same time, we are hoping to soon acquire a title to the 3,500 square metre property that Tembari is occupying,” Sage-embo said.

She said the Department of Lands Secretary John Ofoi has assured the day care facility would be allocated the property towards its educational program for the settlement children.

Sagembo said that aside from operating a pre-school that benefits 40 Tembari children and another 60 from the settlement, Tembari is going to progress into an elementary school programme, initially with each class in Grade 1 and Grade 2.

“They will hold classes at the four-classroom building that we are going to build by July,” she said.

Right now, the Tembari preschoolers are holding classes in two community learning centres (CLCs) donated by Digicel Foundation in 2009.

Sage-embo said this school year, Tembari would be looking after 200 children, providing them meals twice a day, from Monday to Friday and one meal on Saturday.

Of the 200 children, 58 are in primary schools in Port Moresby with 30 of them at Wardstrip in Gordon. The rest are in other schools in the city.

Likewise, the facility has 67 elementary schoolchildren with 58 of them at Wardstrip.

It is also providing early childhood education, or preschool, to 40 children.

Aside from this, Tembari is taking care of 25 non-schoool age children, who like the rest, are neglected, abandoned and orphaned children.

In a brief remark before guests that included corporate executives and community leaders who attended last Saturday’s open house activities, Sage-embo thanked Tembari’s s corporate sponsors and supporters of its daily feeding programme.

The sponsors are RD Foundation, SVS Mart, High Energy Co, Pure Water Company, Pacific Industries Ltd, Malaysian Association in PNG (MAPNG), Filipino Association in PNG (FAPNG), RH Foundation, YES Ltd (money remittance service), Hugo Canning, High Energy Co, Homeguard Construction Ltd, RBP Trading and a number of individual donors who wished not to be named.

Likewise, Sage-embo thanked the sponsors of the school building project that included Australian High Commission, Hardware Haus, AzkoNobel, Malaysian Association of PNG (MAPNG), Filipino Association of PNG (FAPNG), AP Engineering of East New Britain, Eda Ranu, the Lands Department, PNG Concrete and Aggregates, PNG Stones Ltd, RH Group (PNG), Paradise Interiors, Curtain Bros and Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC).

The lunch food served to the kids on Saturday was sponsored by YES Ltd, a Filipino-operated money remittance service in Port Moresby and individual donors who wished not to be mentioned.

Tembari preschoolers perform a nursery song in front of guests.

Personally from me: Our donors and supporters are superb. They have never failed me when I approached them for something that the Tembari kids needed.

It is for this reason that we’re working hard for the sake of the children whose future all lies in the hands of our donors and supporters.

The foodstuff they sent has kept the Tembari children’s spirits high and their stomachs full.

But while they are helping us feed our children, donors have also dug deeper into their pockets to provide them education.

Food and money -- two elements in the lives of the less-fortunate Tembari children -- are combining to make them realize that some big, bright future also awaits them.

And with the tender loving care that Tembari provides, their lives are gradually going full circle.

Tembari’s preschoolers await lunch last Saturday.

Tembari preschoolers queue for lunch last Saturday, after the Open House with invited guests.

Kids receive donuts and flavored milk for snacks, courtesy of SVS mart, YES Ltd, Mr & Mrs Ronald Dizon of Monian Ltd, Nara Muniandy of The National, The Water Company and Pacific Industries.

 Tinned fish from RD Foundation and bottled water from Pure Water Company. RDF is supplying Tembari with 15 cartons of tinned fish every month while Pure Water Company delivers every month bulk water to fill up a 5,000 liter tank and also supplies the center with  20 containers of purified water (19 liters) every week. Another company, the High Energy Co, also supplies the facility with 5,000 liters of drinkable water every month.

 Crowd from the community watch the Tembari children's sing-sing performance.

 The SVS supermarket supplies Tembari with 10 cartons of flavored milk every month. The freezer and the fridge in the picture are donated by the Australian High Commission. 

Preschool children shows off unused 2011 diaries which they will use as writing pads. The donation from The Ella Murray International School (TEMIS) in Port Moresby comprised 16 cartons, with each containing 80 pieces of diaries. – All pictures by ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

 

Email the blogger: ahernandez@thenational.com.pg  and alfredophernandez@y7mail.com