RD Tuna Canners forms RD Foundation

This is the tinned fish product that RD Foundation would be supplying to the Tembari children on a regular basis. The can contains 1.8kg of unflavored tuna chunk usually used in hospitals, restaurants, fast-foods and many more.

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

RD TUNA Canners, the pioneering tinned fish company in Papua New Guinea, has formed its own foundation, the RD Foundation, to formalize its entry into the world of charity.

And the Tembari Children Care (TCC) Inc, which I usually refer to as The Center, is one of its first beneficiaries.

But even before the creation of RD Foundation, RDTC has, for years, been actively engaged in community projects in its host province Madang.

This included giving scholarship to deserving children in the area, providing school materials to various schools, helping villages around its fish processing plant obtain potable water by supplying them with bore water pumps and supplying a local hospital with fresh tuna on a regular basis.

It also has initiated livelihood projects as part of its corporate responsibility to the community hosting its business – the processing of tuna into exportable products.

However, the company is doing this without a charitable arm such as a foundation until the recent creation of RD Foundation.

I believe that RDTC’s entry into institutionalized charity activities was prompted by my constant nagging of its managing director, Pete C Celso, Jr, for a regular tinned fish donation on behalf of the Tembari children.

To be specific, I requested the company for a monthly supply of several cartons to meet the daily protein needs of the 98 kids being looked after by The Center.

Along with rice, our kids are consuming at least 27 cans (425gms) of this product daily, or 162 cans a week, equivalent to 6.75 cartons, or at least 24 cartons a month.

I did request this volume despite my previous knowledge of RDTC’s policy of accommodating donations on a “one-off” basis only and on a very limited quantity.

In other words, the company would normally accommodate requests from certain groups especially those that are holding conferences, or during especial occasions, for a supply of their products.

Then they are forgotten, which is not surprising.

A month or so ago, I had a chance meeting with Pete C Celso in Port Moresby and immediately he told me that if ever RDTC would support the Tembari children, he would like to do it on a “regular and sustainable basis”.

This way, we no longer have to look for the next donor once the supply of tinned fish has been consumed.

But since we are feeding the Tembari children everyday, from Monday to Saturday, we have to continue buying tinned fish while waiting for the prospect that one day the company would really help us solve our problem.

Meanwhile, our children’s daily consumption of tinned fish has been weighing down on our very limited funds.

So, I continued chasing RDTC for its support to the chagrin of the people who were in charge to deal with this kind or request.

And I had chased them for almost every week, telling them about our problem of being unable to really afford the cost of the item.

I had even reminded Pete that RDTC won’t be losing anything by giving to Tembari children because whatever quantity it is to give could be deducted from the company’s yearly taxable income.

This is because TCC is registered with Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) as a community-based organization (CBO), which is allowed to seek and received donations that are tax deductible.

While RDTC could deduct the value of its donation to The Center from the yearly taxable income, it would be helping our needy children and at the same time look good in the media. Therefore, it would lose nothing but instead, gain the goodwill of humanity.

Early last week, the good news finally came: That RDTC could now supply us with a modest quantity of its product on a monthly basis through its foundation – the RD Foundation which has just been launched.

I thank the company abundantly for its gesture, and crossed my fingers that it comes very soon.

So, while the supply would last only for at least 10 days, to us at The Center, this is just great because it would spare us from buying tinned fish for at least 10 days out of the 24 feeding days that we do every month.

To fill the gap, which is 14 days, I would have to continue talking to potential donors of this item.

Thank you RDTC and RD Foundation for this big relief!


Email the writer: alfredophernandez@thenational.com.pg
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Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC) Ltd is Tembari’s latest corporate supporter; three ladies to help the Tembari kids

Filipino expats Rose Cordero (red blouse), Zeny Ala (blue blouse) and and Jovy Baltazar (yellow blouse) pose with Penny Sagembo (right) and the Tembari kids during the trio’s visit of The Center.


From left: Rose Cordero, Hayward Sagembo, Zeny Ala, Jovy Baltazar and Penny Sagembo. (More pictures below story).



By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

ON SATURDAY, three ladies drove up to The Center to find out what help they could offer to the Tembari Children.

Our Filipino expat visitors were Zeny R Ala, owner of Associated Builders & Contractors Ltd (ABC), who is also the administrative and finance manager, Jovy G Baltazar, GM of Paradise Business Consultants and Rose Cordero of Avenell Engineering Systems Ltd.

The three visited The Center during my special Saturday feeding gig in which the Tembari Children were served special lunch usually paid for by two sponsors.

However, last Saturday’s lunch was shouldered solely by Zeny.

Immediately after meeting the Tembari Children, the threeladies had promised Hayward and Penny Sagembo, the Co-Founders of the Tembari Children Care (TCC) center, that they would do networking to market the future of its young wards.

Networking means they would tap their respective clients and contacts for possible assistance to The Center, especially with one that concerns the children’s education.

And they would even use Facebook to spread the news about the good things that are happening with the 98 children at The Center, and possibly reach out to many new potential donors and supporters.

The Tembari children are composed of orphans, abandoned, neglected and unfortunate children being cared for by grandparents and close relatives who are themselves economically deprived. That’s why they are all relying on The Center for the children’s food and education needs.

At present, we have 45 preschoolers who are holding classes from Monday to Friday at The Center and another 42 children at 11 elementary and primary schools around Port Moresby. The rest are toddlers plus a young girl who just came in this week.

The fees of the schoolchildren are paid for by The Center, using school fee grants from WeCaRe! foundation. On the other hand, the foundation received educational funding from Digicel Foundation.

At this time, the ladies were already looking at the next school year wherein they could tap their contacts for possible assistance concerning the school fees of our 40 plus elementary and primary schoolchildren should WeCaRe! become unable to continue supporting the Tembari Children’s schooling for one reason or the other.

About an hour ago, while Zeny, Jovy and Rose were on their way to The Center at ATS Oro Settlement, at Seven-Mile, a delivery truck from ABC brought in 10 bags of cement which will be needed to build the platform of our water tank system.

The material’s delivery was arranged by Zeny a day before. She promised that more building materials such as timber needed for this project would follow next.

Hayward had brief them on our desire to install a water system due to our difficulties with water. We would tap water from the mainline operated by Eda Ranu, which is several meters away from The Center’s premises.

Hayward also told them of The Center’s plan to build another classroom for our 45 preschoolers. We have expected that by next year, their number would increase to at least 55, one reason we needed additional space to accommodate them.

Zeny has instructed me to coordinate with one of ABC’s building engineers, Cocoy Erbina, whom she will assign to this particular undertaking.

With the coming of Zeny, Jovy and Rose, the base of The Center’s prospective individual and corporate supporters would somehow expand.

Zeny’s company had its own network of contacts whom she promised to tap for support; Jovy’s company has its own network of corporate executives that she could approach, and so with Rose, whose company has a rich rooster of potential supporters.

Through their Facebook accounts, they would link up with my own blog site www.tembari.blogspot.com to further give Tembari Children cyber exposure, which could generate possible support from Facebook visitors.

Indeed, the possibilities are quite endless.

By the way, the ladies brought with them four bundles of old clothing which were distributed to our volunteer mothers and to kids who were lucky enough to fit in one or two of the kiddy clothes.

And while waiting for my special lunch to be served, Zeny, Jovy and Rose had noticed that almost all the kids walked barefooted.

This was one of those things they would look into, they said.

Zeny, Rose and Jovy with the children during lunch on Saturday.

Tembari kids crowding at the back of the car for the goodies like purified drinking water, cordial drinks and cooking ingredients.

Hayward, Rose and Zeny collecting the bundles of used clothing from the car.

Children wash their hands just before they are to be served special hot corn soup.

Penny holds a dialogue (with laptop) with volunteer mothers regarding The Center’s livelihood assistance program.

A volunteer mother pose with a cooking “puto” (Filipino steamed cake) for snacks after the volunteer mothers meeting with Penny.

The newly-cooked “puto” prepared by blogger APH for the volunteer mothers.

Penny surrounded by children while explaining something to them just before lunch is served.



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AutoZeal of Port Moresby comes to our rescue

Tembari children line up for the goodies.

Tembari children eagerly help out to remove from the car 10 cartons of flavored milk donated by SVS Supermart. This car had been idled for almost two weeks due to a dead distributor system which proved so difficult to replace.

Kids removing from the car containers of purified water donated by The Water Company.

nthusiastic kids carry foodstuff taken from the car which will go to their lunch on Saturday.

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

HERE’S A LITTLE story for those who believe in prayers and those who don’t.

For the believers, this tale would serve as an affirmation of their fate to every prayer they make; for the doubters, it could be another file to sit deeply in their consciousness, much less another of those experiences heard from friends, which they could later call for review and analysis out of curiosity.

For almost two weeks until last Thursday, my 20-year-old car, a white Mazda 323 Station Wagon, had been disabled due to a dead distributor system.

It’s this part of a vehicle engine which receives electricity from the battery and distributes it to the engine through the spark plugs.

This process is the one that fires up the petrol and circulate the heat produced within the engine system – the heat becoming a compressed power that moves the pistons, and thus turns the engine’s rotating parts to roll and makes the car run.

Well, being a layman car-user, this was how I had understood it.

My car’s distributor system could no longer perform this function owing to its age -- it had never been replaced since the car went on the road more than 20 years ago.

A second buyer, I have been using this car for the last 14 years, to the chagrin of my friends who are familiar with its frequent breakdowns, something that had put my life in danger.

(One Friday just before Holy Week this year, I was driving around Gerehu Stage 4 on my way home, with some donated stuff which I picked up at Papua Niugini Freezers (PNF), when its clutch gave way, causing the car to stall along the road. While waiting for my friend to come so he could tow it, armed raskols came and hit me.)

When the car conked out due to expired distributor system, my Filipino mechanic and car-repair shop owner Lito, scrambled to find a replacement.

Knowing my activities at the Tembari Children Care center, he was concerned; without my car, he knew I would be grounded, which means a number of people – the Tembari children, in particular -- would be affected.

Like me, his wife Susan is also involved in a feeding program for kids at Tokarara and has sympathized with me with regards to my own Saturday feeding activities.

Lito had gone to all used-car parts dealers in Port Moresby but to no avail; he even checked with his contacts at car-wreckers shops in the city for this piece of junk.

Chop-chop shops are usually the last place where mechanics looked for rare parts, hoping that they could be available. But this time, they did not serve the purpose.

Although the mechanic found three sets of the same make which were hoped to match my car’s disabled distributor system, their serial numbers did not. So, none really worked.

In my desperation, I prayed a lot over this, asking my Lord to please help us find it.

At the same time, I posted an item about this problem on my blogsite www.tembari.blogspot.com to inform supporters and benefactors of the Tembari Children and those who would care.

For us at The Center, my car going “bagarap” was a big thing.

During those days that it was sitting at the car shop and gathering dust without the prospect of being resurrected, I was not able to collect donations for the Tembari children.

One regular donor, the High Energy Co, a fishing group exporting frozen marine products, was quite concerned about the problem as I was unable to take in its frozen fish delivery.

Another supporter had even offered to provide me transport in going to ATS Oro Settlement at Seven-Mile where The Center is located, so I could continue with my work.

But I explained there were other involved peripheral errands for Tembari children which I could not accomplish without the car.

In short, the car doubles as my personal transport and a delivery vehicle of donated stuffs – food and materials, including drinking water for our 97 kids. Meanwhile, I had requested my company’s transport service for a daily pick up from my house to the workplace, and back.

My biggest frustration was that for two Saturdays, I was unable to cook special lunch for the children. It was only during the weekend that they are able to eat a decent meal, courtesy of friends and supporters who would sponsor the materials that go into this meal.

Meantime, I stopped calling donors because I was worried that I may not be able to collect whatever donations they had prepared, and thus, disappointing them.

With all these misfortunes, everything stopped at The Center, something which I considered a big setback in our day to day operations, although our daily feeding – from Monday to Friday – went on, using foodstuff donations that were earlier delivered to The Center.

Meanwhile, I kept praying that this particular part that my car badly needed could become available despite the prospects that there’s was no hope at all, unless it was imported from Singapore at great cost, according to my mechanic.

In fact, he already placed an order through one of the auto parts dealers in Port Moresby.

Early last week, I received an email from one of my blogsite’s readers.

He said he read my blog and wanted to know the status of the car. He said, if I would allow them to look into the disabled distributor system, they would be able to restore it and have it running again.

Indian expat Bernard George, chief executive of AutoZeal, an automotive company in Port Moresby, told me: I was concerned that you are unable to further your work with the Tembari children.

“I have been reading your blog,” he told me on the phone.

“We will restore your car … at my company’s cost because I want you to continue with your work for the children …”

Immediately on the same day, he sent his technicians to my mechanic’s car shop at Hohola to have a look at my car, particularly the distributor system.

It was really dead for good, the mechanic had found out after tinkering with it at his shop at AutoZeal.

But Bernard’s car shop has another option: they can modify a similar distributor system, something which his modification experts immediately plunged into.

He told me on the phone that before Friday (last Friday), I could have my car again.

On Thursday afternoon, Lito, the mechanic, called me to say he was about to test drive the car.

“Oh, really …? How …?” I asked stupidly in my excitement.

“AutoZeal modified another distributor system and made it work … come to the shop now and get your car …”

Bernard called me again, saying they would like to have the car checked once more to make sure everything was doing well, and suggested that I bring the car to AutoZeal service shop.

Meeting me in person, he told me: “Keep it up … a lot of kids is depending on you …”

I thanked him profusely.

But I did not tell him about my prayer.

(To know the various automotive services AutoZeal offers, please visit www.autozeal.com.pg)

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

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.

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Tembari Center’s livelihood scheme winning fans

These three volunteer mothers are among the ten beneficiaries of The Center’s livelihood assistance project.

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children

THE MODEST livelihood assistance program initiated by Tembari Children Care (TCC) for its 10 volunteer mothers is drawing many fans.

They are the enthusiastic mothers from ATS Oro Settlement at Seven-Mile and other settlements around the National Capital District.

They are the so-called underprivileged mothers and housewives.

Penny Sagembo, the project initiator, told me on Saturday during my cooking gig at The Center that she got calls from such mothers expressing interest to join the livelihood assistance program.

By the way, Penny Sagembo founded The Center in 2003, alongwith Rishabh Bhandari and Hayward Sagembo. They painstakingly steered through difficulties – financially and logistically -- until it began winning generous support this year from donors and benefactors, thanks to the trio’s consistent efforts.

But my good friend Penny stressed that the buy-and-sell assistance with initial seed capital of K50 for each of the participants is designed only for parent-guardians with kids beinglooked after at The Center.

This is one way of enabling them to earn some kina which they could use to pay for their foster-children’s daily bus fares in going to school in Port Moresby and coming back to the settlement and for their daily school snacks.

At the same time, it could also help them earn money to buy food for the family.

At present, The Center has 42 schoolchildren attending classes in 11elementary schools around Port Moresby and once in a while, a number of foster parents of these pupils would ask for bus fare assistance or biscuit money from The Center.

TCC paid for their school fees this year through funding from WeCaRe!, a foundation operated by retired priest, Fr John Glynn.

But Penny said The Center has no money for such an expense because what it got right now is solely allotted to the daily feeding of the 97 children under its care.

The Center does not only feed them once a day, but twice – once at noon time as snacks for the 45 preschoolers in the form of bread baked by our volunteer mothers and early dinner at 4-5pm, of rice and tinned fish and veggies, served to both its preschoolers and schoolchildren who returned from the city schools.

Aside from the K50 seed capital, Penny also opened a bank account with the PNG Micro-Finance for each of the 10 mother-participants with an initial deposit of K50.

It’s one thing commercial banks in Port Moresby would not let them do.

In all, The Center has lent each mother K100 for a total of K1,000, an amount that she drew against some funds from donors.

Livelihood assistance to its beneficiaries is among the goals for which TCC has been formed and registered with the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA).

Under the scheme, each of the volunteer mothers would pay back K20 every fortnight and at the same time depositing an amount to their bank accounts from income made through selling betel nuts, smoke, lollies, candies and many others.

One beneficiary-mother proudly told me that everyday, she would make K80 from her sale. Of this, she would keep K30 and roll back the rest for the next day’s business. In effect, she’s making K30 a day or K210 during the seven-day buying-and-selling.

Penny said: They are going great … they already settled their first fortnight repayment and has some money waiting to be deposited to their accounts.

Once The Center has recouped the seed capital of K1,000, a new batch of 10 mothers from the settlement with foster-children at The Center will follow suit.

According to PNG Micro-Finance, once the mothers have saved at least K300, they become eligible to borrow a seed capital of the same amount, under certain lending terms. But the interest would be very minimal.

Right now, the next batch of would-be-borrowers from Oro settlement has already been screened and will be the next to get on board.
With the bright prospect of this livelihood program, we are inclined to look for donors who would be able to help us expand this project.

This way, we would be able to help more foster parents earn daily income, and thus deal with their everyday money woes gradually.

Based on the performance of the first batch of 10 mother-volunteers, the scheme is working.

And because of this, it looks like their daily income, however small it would seem, is helping a lot with their everyday household expenses.

They no longer have to ask for bus fares and snack money from The Center for their schoolchildren.

And the good thing is that the livelihood assistance is propping them up to become self-sufficient little by little.

Effectively, the culture of frugality by being able to save an amount however small it is, is being instilled among them.

In simple words, such modest livelihood assistance is giving meaning to the much-abused and often empty word “women empowerment”.

We have just empowered these 10 mothers to launch themselves towards the bumpy road to self-sufficiency, an opportunity seldom available to many deprived individuals, especially settlement mothers.

Email the writer: alfredophernandez@thenational.com.pg
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Saddest Saturday for Tembari children

A usual scene at The Center every Saturday when the kids are seated on the dining tables while waiting for a special lunch to be served. On Saturday, this did not happen after the Saturday cook, APH, failed to come as he did not have a vehicle to use in coming to the settlement.


By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children


I FELT BAD, and I am still right now, for being unable to cook lunch for the kids on Saturday.

I knew they had looked forward to this day because it was only this time when they could have a decent meal. And as always, they had anticipated sipping a nice hot soup before special lunch is served.

And for my part, I have pledged to myself I would do this without fail, save for the time when I would be going home to Manila for my four-week annual leave, which comes in April.

And this was made possible by individuals who “sponsored” the food I cooked every Saturday.

Those who know of my Saturday gig at The Center with the Children could only comment: “Freddie, that’s a tough job you’re doing for the children …”

This had been the first day ever that I missed cooking for them. I began this Saturday special lunch cooking 10 months ago when I realized that the Tembari Children during those days were not eating proper meal.

The reason was that The Center did not get assistance it is getting now, especially foodstuff and materials.

But I blame nothing for what has happened and continuously happening.

My 20-year-old car – a station wagon Mazda 323 -- that had allowed me to move around and collect donations every Friday, buy foodstuff that would go into the lunch of the Tembari children and brought me every Saturday morning to The Center at the heart of ATS Oro Settlement, at 7-Mile outside of Port Moresby, has finally given up.

When it stopped dead after its distributor system conked out due to old age, and no junkshops and surplus car parts stores in Port Moresby could provide a replacement part, a lot of things at the Tembari Center seemed to have stopped.

There were donations to be collected last Friday but I was unable to do so, including that purified drinking water that I usually brought to The Center on Saturday.

I was afraid the children did not have water to drink after their lunch of rice and tinned fish on Saturday.

There’s a water crisis at the settlement and obtaining drinking water has been the most difficult for our volunteer mothers.

For Saturday’s lunch, I called Penny Sagembo, the Co-Founder and Co-President of Tembari Children Care (TCC) center – and requested her to have something for lunch.

The kids had expected to have a nice lunch, as always, thinking that I would be coming over, like what I had done every Saturday over the last nine and half months.

But I did not.

So our volunteer mothers just prepared a meal of tinned fish and rice, something that they usually have from Monday to Friday.

Now car-less, and the prospect of being one really persisted, I can’t call potential donors to follow up on a number of stuff that I have solicited on behalf of the Tembari children.

One reason is that, should they make available the requested items, I may not be able to pick them up, which I felt could disappoint them.

For instance, there’s a donation of eight cartons of cordial drink from Coca-Cola Amatil that is due for this month. However, I can’t arrange to have it released since I have no means to haul them off from its depot at Gordon, and bring them to The Center at the settlement.

Ten cartons of flavored milk at SVS supermarket, a cheque from the Children’s Foundation covering a monthly grant, five containers of purified water from The Water Company and another four cartons of cordial drink from Pacific Industries are waiting to be picked up.

I don’t want to ask friends to help out, knowing it would be a lot of hassle.

Truly, it has been a big setback for us – especially for the Tembari Children.

I did not expect something like this could happen, including a car that could go dead for good.

There are people ready to give, and continue to give for the sake of the Tembari Children; it is an assurance that service towards their well-being would be sustained.

But there are also gremlins that could pop their heads even in broad-day light and spoil everything.

Early last week, they just did it.


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

My car conks out and it affects a lot of people; Hideaway Hotel makes our day

The special dish catered by Hideaway Hotel for the Tembari children. More pictures below story.

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children


EARLY last week, my car broke down and this misfortune in my life has also affected a lot of people.

A 20-year-old car, its distributor system conked out for good and my mechanic has failed to find a replacement, with the car parts stores all over Port Moresby saying: It’s a very old car… parts won’t come by easily … time to retire it …”

With no vehicle to enable me to do many errands for the Tembari children, I am practically crippled.

The usual Friday afternoon super-marketing I do for foodstuff and ingredients that would go into the children’s special lunch the next day – a Saturday – has become impossible. This means that I would not be able to go to The Center to cook for the kids.

It is only on a Saturday that the Tembari children are able to have a decent lunch which is sponsored by two individuals chipping in K150 each.

Not only that. It’s on a Friday that I would collect all sorts of donations that I would bring to The Center the next day. And that car has doubled as The Center’s delivery truck – on occasions carrying several bags of rice, cartons of cordial drinks or tinned fish, etc etc.

One important routine that I normally do on a Friday is to pick up five containers of purified water – a donation from The Water Company. Last Friday I was not able to do that.

The result? The kids had their lunch without tasting a single drop of water.

The settlement’s water service operated by the village association, as usual, remains hopeless – water did not come at the time agreed upon, to the chagrin of many people whose buckets and plastic containers made a long line in front of the dry tap.

Our volunteer mothers came back to The Center with empty buckets.

Feeling bad that I would not be able to bring food to The Center for the next day’s feeding – a Saturday choir that I have been doing since last January – I was forced on Friday night to call a Filipino expatriate who manages the Hideaway Hotel at 6-Mile.

It was my last resort – the only option to save the children’s day. The kids have been used to having a nice lunch every Saturday – something very much different from what they usually have for a meal from Monday to Friday.

I told him my problem – beginning from the car breakdown, to the foodstuff and ingredients for the next day’s feeding program that I was unable to buy.

“Can you ask your chef to prepare something for the kids’ lunch tomorrow?” I asked him shamelessly, without preamble.

“How many kids are we talking about …?” Don Manaloto, the general manager of Hideaway hotel, asked back without making further questions.

“At least 97, plus seven volunteer mothers … do you think this is workable …?” I asked back.

“Okay … not a problem …” Don replied, adding: “I will tell the kitchen to do some nice dish and have it delivered before lunch time … you said 11am, right?”

But then, I wanted to come to The Center to do other things. Earlier, I had planned to teach the volunteer mother assigned to cook the children’s daily meals how to make bread, using yeast.

We have a huge flour stock, a donation from Lae Biscuits that we have to consume immediately before bugs and weevils beat us on it.

But this one may not push through that day as I won’t be able to go to The Center.

But luckily, a friend wanted to meet the Tembari children on Saturday and to bring them a carton of ice cream, so I asked him to pick me up at home, explaining that I was, and still, car-less.
On our way to The Center, I got a call from Hayward Sagembo, Co-Founder and Director of Tembari Children Care (TCC), to say that food from Hideaway Hotel just arrived. He asked if I f I was coming. I said I was on the way now.

The catered lunch was great – chicken stew with lots of meat and potatoes and gravy. The diners– numbering 90 kids – enjoyed the food enormously.

Since there was no water to drink (we even skipped the kids’ hands washing as there was no water to spare), I told the volunteer mothers to give them milk instead, just to have something to wash the food down their throats.

I don’t know how long it would take the mechanic to find the parts that would resurrect my car. I have been using this junk for the last 14 years that it should really be retired now – for good.

But that is out of the question.

Penny Sagembo, TCC Co-Founder and Co-President, apportioning to the 90 kids who came for lunch on Saturday.

A volunteer mother serving lunch to the kids.

Children enjoying their lunch despite having no water to drink.

These two water coolers are empty due to water crisis at the village.

Empty milk packs strewn under the table while mothers prepare to serve milk to the children to take the place of drinking water.

A volunteer mother scoops chocolate ice cream for the children.

Email the writer: alfredophernandez@thenational.com.pg
jarahdz500@online.net.pg
freddiephernandez@yahoo.com