The community development training is conducted over two years at the Christian Leaders Training College in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The course includes needs assessment, project management, rice production, meat chicken production and business skills.

The course costs $3,300pa for a single student and $4,400pa for a married couple and is tax deductible to ARDFA donors. [Note: Monthly donations of $275/$370 via GiveNow are welcome.]

You can provide a scholarship for (or sponsor) a needy student for one year only if two years stretches your budget. ARDFA will find another donor to fill the gap.

Rural Disadvantage Some 87 percent of Papua New Guinea’s people live in rural areas with few facilities. The main problems are limited access to basic health and education services. Roads often don’t exist or are of a poor standard. They are hard to maintain because of high rainfall and soil erosion. People must walk long distances to get to school or reach a medical centre.

People in rural areas live in a variety of traditional houses made from bush materials, while people in towns tend to live in Western-style housing. Diet consists of what can be grown in gardens – sweet potato, taro and greens. Only 10 percent of people have a telephone and less than two percent have access to the internet. 

Education is highly valued by the people of PNG. However, the public education system is poorly funded and under-resourced – particularly in the more remote areas. Approximately 30 percent of children never attend primary school.

Positively, there are moves to expand the use of tok ples (local language) in education programs. Also, there are increasing efforts to improve teacher training and make the curriculum more relevant to student needs.

Health services are extremely poor across PNG, especially in rural areas, where roads often don’t exist and there is a shortage of skilled healthcare workers. These limitations have a negative impact on the prevention and treatment of health problems.

In addition, people in remote areas have poor access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. This means that communicable diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera are major causes of illness and death, especially in young children. Malnutrition and HIV and AIDS are also long term health problems, and the use of tobacco and alcohol are increasing problems.

A major health challenge in PNG is the limited number of skilled healthcare professionals and hospitals available to the population.
PNG has less than 400 doctors in total and only 51 work outside the capital Port Moresby. This is despite the fact that 87 percent of people live in rural areas. PNG has one doctor for every 17,068 people, compared to one doctor for every 302 people in Australia.

There is a similar shortage of nurses in PNG, with approximately one nurse for every 2,270 people. In Australia, there is one nurse for every 100 people (World Bank, 2010).

What is the course? The Diploma of Community Development combines the principles and practice of community development with biblical studies. The college farm provides financial support for the training programs. CLTC has considerable expertise in agriculture and poultry and has used this expertise in the past to train people to contribute to the development of viable communities in Melanesia and beyond.

The course combines various elements of Christian, business and agriculture to train government workers, staff of aid agencies and NGOs, as well as self-supporting pastors and others with an interest in developing the livelihood and welfare of communities.