My mission is to “save the school leavers and leave none of them behind with their dreams.”
Janet Patricia Thomas is the National Marketing Officer for Mapex Training Institute. She hails from the Koroba Kopiago District in Hela Province. Miss Thomas is a sincere, brilliant and intelligent woman who has been advocating about equality in education and humanity in country. She crossed paths with millions of Papua New Guineans over 20 provinces that she sets foot on, from the misty mountain peaks in the highlands to the lowland rural vicinities across to the islands of Papua New Guinea.
Her aspiration to see young Papua New Guineans get educated started eight years ago when she joined Mapex Training Institute, wherein her current journey and working career was inspired by her ineffable personal experiences as a young woman in a competitive world. Her personal story is another inspirational tale to young people to be told.
With a massive law and order break down, Southern Highlands and Hela Province have undergone a lot of political chaos, violence and turmoil in the recent decade that has affected three quarters (3/4) of student population in both provinces, leaving an enormous number of young population uneducated, unfortunate and heavily involved with guns, drugs, homebrews, fight and violence while their dreams are left shattered within uncertainty.
Young man became fighters, matured men became warlords, while young women undergo sexual, domestic violence, early pregnancy and verbal/confrontational harassment as a result of political disadvantage. All these chaos distracted their focus away from school and being educated. The consequence has seen high rate of illiteracy and educational breakdown in the two provinces.
Nevertheless, Miss Thomas, using her passionate and fascinating vision to enthuse and inspire, came up with an initiative in which she decided to establish the first Mapex Training Institute campus at Kutjeli in the heart of Tari town, Hela province. The purpose behind her vying for this institution’s establishment is to give another chance to the victimised youths in that two provinces to have a second chance of education in life.
Before resumption of this substantial initiative, she made a preliminary surveillance to tour Hela and Southern Highlands province, all throughout the electorates and found out common problems, complications and encounters relating to political bangs on education that are faced by young population in the province. With the survey information her team obtained including data from other provinces she visited, approximately 60% of those results have shown that young people in rural Papua New Guinea are anxious of being educated but lack basic education essentials, some are dropped out of high schools whereas nearly 20,000 students missing out on formal selections into tertiary institutions annually. These outcomes brought despondency and became the main reason for the Institution’s establishment by Miss Thomas and her project team in Tari.
“As Papua New Guineans, we have to take the initiative of nurturing our own race. Nobody is a failure, it is the education system in PNG and its requirements that rejected us. We cannot sit and watch with ignorance as our countrymen suffer with high rate of illiteracy, lack of educational opportunity and unemployment issues,” she said.
“As voluntary individuals are leading in assisting the Education department and DHERST in serving the greatest government slogan of Leave no-child behind, intervention of all local MPs to support with infrastructure, logistics and finance will be of high significance and is genuine for a worthy cause,” she added.
However, with the affection, sadness and aspiration for her country men and women, the Mapex Training Institute campus is now established and already open with a mini temporary office installed for enrolment and other genuine administrative and official records. Enrolled students are eligible to take courses in the local campus or can be transferred to MTI main campus, Telikom compound 4mile, Port Moresby.
During an interview with Miss Thomas after the college’s establishment in Tari, she proclaimed that over one thousand (1000) students from Hela and SHP have been enrolled with some still enquiring and expressing interest to pursue their second chance of education in life. One male student was referred from Tari campus down to Port Moresby to study certificate in excavator operator.
Upon the local campus’ establishment, Miss Janet Patricia Thomas and Mapex Training Institution management invited young people from Hela, Southern Highlands Province as well as Enga and Western Highlands to join the movement to get job-oriented training from a wide range of faculties such as machineries, hydraulics, heavy and light equipment etc. The campus is also offering certificate in office and other administrative professions as well. By seeing the implementation of a lifetime benefit project successful, young people from Hela province who are now enrolled at the institution have raised concerns to their local MPs to collaborate with Prime Minister Hon James Marape and establish few more colleges within the province so that law and order issues are minimised and majority of the population will be educated as that is possibly a significant way of restoring Hela and Southern Highlands province to their glorious form.
As the initiator of this implemented lifetime project, Miss Janet Patricia Thomas humbly requests moral and physical support from all elites, professionals, entrepreneurs, SME owners, leaders, and politicians to support this movement of change that is now trending in Hela and S.
“Join hands together, throw away the guns, help someone get a trade, help them get employed and say no to violence of all forms in our provinces. I started this and I will finish it on a high note as nobody in Hela and Southern Highlands will be left behind.”
A great task now lies with leaders to make this change endure to sustain peace and normalcy in the two provinces. If there’s a way out of political bondage and slavery, it is only through education.