Children at The Ela Murray Int’l School donate to Tembari

These three preschoolers beam in their new attire – a school uniform donated by the children at The Ela Murray International School (TEMIS).

Penny Sagembo – Tembari Co-Founder and Co-President (center) – distributes donated clothing items to beneficiary children. (More pics after story)

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

A Friend of Tembari Children

CHILDREN at an international school here in Port Moresby have found their own way of cheering up their less-fortunate counterparts at Tembari.

The kids, who belong to The Ela Murray International School who are mostly children of expatriates, wanted to make sure that our preschoolers continued to watch children’s shows on DVDs where they are learning new things about children in foreign countries.

Simply put it, they raised a generous sum of money – K900 (about US$380) – to pay for Tembari’s monthly electric bills! (we received the cheque for this amount last Thursday.)

According to Ms Narelle Levey, who coordinated the initiative, the kids collected everyday from among themselves some kina, the local currency. The amount which was raised over two months could have been part of their daily school pocket money.

I know that the amount would go a long way because Tembari is just consuming about K50 (US$22) a month since it was connected to the village power grid early this year.

At present, it has very few power-run gadgets such as six fluorescent bulbs, a computer set, a DVD player and flat screen TV and a hot-and-cold water dispenser.

But once we received the two freezers and a refrigerator from the Australian Embassy, we expect power consumption to shoot up.

But as of now, there should be no problem.

The K900-cheque came along with several boxes of items that contained new school uniforms, new pairs of shoes, new clothing items and more.

To date, Tembari has yet to provide its preschoolers a uniform each. This is because a simple school uniform for boys and girls could burn a big hole in our cash flow.

But once our finances improve, we would be able to provide our boys and girls a uniform set to wear every day.

We are planning to give them plain yellow polo shirts (honeycomb fabric) with the new Tembari logo printed on them and the matching dark green skirts for girls and short pants for boys.

The clothing items were given away on Saturday to the children, who could not contain their excitement for having one decent wear.

The shoes, hopefully, could fit most of our young boys and girls attending the grade schools around Port Moresby. There are 79 of them in all.

In an email sent to me sometime last July, Ms Levey asked: “Could the children at The Ela Murray International School (TEMIS) donate to Tembari children? Our children are now doing their fundraising and gathering things for Tembari kids …”

My resounding reply was: “Please … by all means! Our
beneficiary children need all help that comes along.”

Anything that comes to us on behalf of Tembari children is always blessing that we welcome with open arms and a grateful heart.

The Ela Murray children had sent something more than our children had expected. They sent them innocent but sweet friendship that came with new hopes for a life much better than what they are having now. It is interesting to recall here that TCC’s inception took place about 8 years ago when Rishabh Bhandari, TCC’s Founder and Co-President, then a Ela Murray student, met Penny and Hayward at premises of that school. Rishabh felt the same way and wanted to change the world of the unfortunate and orphan kids and joined hands together with Penny and Hayward, and that lead to the birth of TCC in 2003.

Thanks to you, Little Ones of The Ela Murray International School.

This kid is happy to have a new pair of skirts, courtesy of TEMIS children.

Penny and a kid displaying a T-shirt she just received.

The clothing donation laid out at the Tembari office shortly before they were given out to beneficiary children.

The Esipay meter at Tembari office. Its monthly bills will be paid from the K900 fund donated by the children at TEMIS. – All pictures by AP HERNANDEZ, Port Moresby, PNG, Sept 10, 2011.

Email the blogger: ahernandez@thenational.com.pg and aphernandez58@yahoo.com