Malaysian executive donates uniforms to Tembari volleyball teams

The Team Tembari who will compete in men’s and women’s Independence Day volleyball tournament. The players are proudly showing off the jersey uniforms donated by Chew Pang Heng, the executive director of Vanimo Jaya Ltd, a resource developer based in Port Moresby. The balls and net (shown behind the players) have been donated by AkzoNobel. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

One of the team members sets up the volleyball net while his team-members assist him.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The Tembari playground where the volleyball tournament will be held for two days, from September 16-17, to mark the 36^th Independence Day. - All pictures by blogger A P HERNANDEZ, Port

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

A Friend of Tembary Children

SHORTLY after I sent out emails to potential donors last Thursday, seeking donations of sports uniforms for our young men and women’s volleyball teams, I received a call on my cell phone.

The caller was Chew Pang Heng, executive director of Vanimo Jaya Ltd, a Port Moresby-based resource developer.

Introducing himself, Mr Chew went straight to the point, wanting to know: Has anybody responded to my appeal-email for donations towards our volleyball teams’ uniforms?

You see, I sent out the message just an hour ago, and from the addresses on my file, about a hundred came back indicating they were either erroneous addresses or simply no longer in use.

I replied to him in the negative. None so far, at the moment, I informed him.

Making Mr Chew the very first to respond positively. And he was the only one, so far.

But it’s alright.

What is important is that our urgent need for the items has been filled and for this, we are thankful to our new donor, Mr Chew.

I met him last Friday afternoon to pick up the money amounting to K600 (US$255/Php10,920), and later handed itover to TCC Co-Founder and Director, Hayward Sagembo, who dropped by my workplace.

The fund bought 20 sets of jersey shirts and shorts which the team members size-fitted on Saturday.

Mr Chew said he was glad to help the two Tembari teams composed of volunteers.

True, this made our young athletes very proud and excited when they wore the jerseys for a photo session with me on Saturday.

For the first time in their lives, they would be wearing their first sports uniform – a volleyball jersey at that.

And for the first time in their lives, they will be officially competing with other volleyball players who will be representing 10 volleyball clubs from Oro Village at 7 Mile outside of Port Moresby.

Comprising 20 teams in all – 10 for males and 10 females with each team fielding 10 players for a total of 400 – they would descend at our humble premises on Sept 16 and 17 for the tournament.

The Tembari volleyball tournament is the brainchild of Penny Sagembo, Co-Founder and Co-President of Tembari.

^{She said that the celebration of PNG's 36th th} Independence Day would be an auspicious occasion for the village volleyball lovers to come together for a friendly competition.

This way, she said, the games would keep their minds away from negative influences such as drugs and petty crimes – a sweep of foul breeze from the village’s nasty and depressing environment.

The competition is also a tool to discover talents from among the village young men and women who have knacks for sports.

On the behalf of the Team Tembari (volleyball) and TCC, we would like to thank Mr Chew for his generous assistance.

Now, our athletes could fully concentrate on their daily afternoon practice so they would be ready to face their competition, instead of wondering where to get a pair of uniform for the Big Day.The cost of the 20 sets of uniforms would have burned a big hole in our daily cash flow had we paid for them from Tembari’s modest funding.


These days, we are serving meals to about 200 children daily, with some of them gate-crashers on occasion, but it could not be helped. We don’t turn away the hungry like these non-Tembari kids who would happen by our kitchen – famished -- while the pots are boiling with some mouth-watering meals.
If we were to pay for the Uniforms from our own cash flow, it would have posed problems in our feeding activity.
With Mr Chew’s assistance, our cash flow concern would not be that much to think about.

For feedback, please email the blogger:

ahernandez@thenational.com.pg and aphernandez58@yahoo.com