 Good morning and welcome to this morning's event on everyday fragility and stability in Papua New Guinea We have a mixed in-person and online audience today And I think many of those in the room are very familiar with the US Institute of Peace Maybe for those who are not here just a short word if you're not quite as familiar US IP is a national nonpartisan Institute based here in Washington DC on the National Mall We were created by the US Congress in 1984 to help prevent mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad And we work around the world in this pursuit My name is Brian Harding and I'm the Institute senior expert for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands And for those who know me they know that my expertise lies in Southeast Asia So I look forward to turning over the floor in a few minutes to my colleagues who who are the real experts on the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea But I was thinking before I Sat down here and turned on the microphone What a difference a year makes here at US IP about a year ago We were just thinking about what a Pacific Islands program might look like here at US IP We'd hired our our first specialist Camilla Poli many of you. I'm sure have read her work We're trying to figure out what we might prioritize here at US IP in this vast region It was also not long after Papua New Guinea had been selected as a focus country under the United States strategy to prevent conflict and promote stability created by the Global Fragility Act and I think it you know It's natural that PNG would become a focal point for US US IP programming in the Pacific Islands region, but definitely this designation Created a bit of a North Star for us and some real urgency to our work You'll hear more about our work at US IP a little later But suffice to say that any success that we've had in developing this program has really been because of the incredible team that we've developed here Gordon Peek based at headquarters in Washington DC Ruth Kissam and Port Morris B. And zu abe linear zu abe tinning in lay We also couldn't do our job here without the sport of Megan Sullivan who helped make this event happen today We're also thrilled to have another collaborator with us in the room today Dr. Melissa Damian from the University of Andrews St. Andrews in Scotland who is one of the co-authors of a recent US IP report on Marobe province we're thrilled that the stars aligned to have you here in person in our beautiful building at US IP I Think the attendance here in the room And this is not the first event that we've had on Papua New Guinea in the last last month And from online and Papua New Guinea and elsewhere really shows the rising interest and focus on on the country and the relationship between the United States and Papua New Guinea and really interesting more specifically on Marobe province itself and I was fortunate to visit earlier this year and it truly is a fascinating fascinating place And in Melissa and our program staff zu abe and Ruth who hopefully the internet will Will deliver to us on the screen here in a moment I know we're on in really good hands to explore some of these issues of fragility and stability and finally I would be remiss to say That there is a hashtag for this event hashtag PNG stability I think if you use that this term and Gordon will explain a little more in a moment He might or other panelists might might address People's thoughts and questions so without any further ado I'll hand it over to Gordon and peak to formally introduce Melissa who will get our event going Thank you. Oh Always get the surprise when your microphone goes that way Good morning everyone to everyone in the room and good evening our good night to colleagues joining us on the other side of the world in the Southern Hemisphere where it's about 10 30 in Port Moresby and We really appreciate you doing the late shift for us tonight And I mean just to pick up a little bit on what what Brian said Melissa and I have known each other for about 10 years now I was thinking We were colleagues together at the Australian National University in Canberra, and I don't think 10 years ago Melissa even two or three years ago if we tried to put together a A Seminar a discussion about Marouba province We would have got the attendance that we have and I think it shows that the sort of the levels of interest That there are and one of the things that we wanted to do and this was have a sort of Q&A Session between myself Melissa and our colleagues Wabbe and Ruth but also to begin with to help sort of paint up a picture of what Marouba province is like Melissa and Zoab a wrote a really excellent paper Which is on our website which is called lay city at the heart of Papua New Guinea Which paints the picture pictures really well with really well chosen words, but we asked you to put together a slideshow Just to kind of give You know your Minds I view off the thing and I'll ask you to begin the session by taking us through that which should take about 10 10 15 minutes or so. Thanks Melissa Thank you so much Gordon. Thank you, Brian for having me here. Good night. Oh line blow PNG wherever you are in the internet world it is an absolute pleasure and privilege to be here and I Also never would have thought To be able to talk to people who have developed a real interest in what's happening in PNG as A consequence in part of the Global Fragility Act But also as a consequence of renewing a relationship between the US and PNG that has been dormant for a long time. I was just speaking to one of the One of one of our attendees earlier and noting that this is I I would say Possibly the most sustained interest that United States has had in PNG since the Second World War I think this is really significant and welcome So Gordon asked me to to show you some some pictures. That's that's me If you want to stay in touch you can find me on the San Andreas website and But let's let's let's talk about PNG right so there it is you should be familiar with this shape by now Right, it's the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. Morabee province is Kind of in the north center of the country It is by population the largest province in the country. It is extremely internally diverse a lot of Industries are are located there and the city of lay Right is right there tucked into the tucked into a bay there on a very complex fault system If you ever have the privilege of lay you will get some rock and roll happening while you're happening while you're there It's a very seismic city Which can be exciting and slightly alarming if you're not used to it and There it is right, so you have a Built-up city center right on the coast between the the boom-boo and busu rivers and Most of that kind of formal part of the city center is the kind of legacy of a gold rush town from the 1920s and 30s It was originally Really lay was an airstrip to serve the gold fields of the Waobu lo lo region in the interior of Morabee province And so there's this very kind of small formally built-up city center surrounded by Most of the city's population which lives in informal housing. This is a real interest of mine Informal housing Created along the two main roads that come out from the city through a variety of Again informal Non-non legal but not illegal And this is one of the problems leasehold agreements with customary landowners who who still inhabit the area and you can see the University of Technology of Papua New Guinea is also located just outside of lay. This is where all the country's engineers Are educated right so that's that's the bird's-eye view, but that's not really so interesting What's more interesting is once you get on the ground and this is what I do as an anthropologist Right, you spend a long time in a place and you get to know it and you get to know the people there again The city center looks like pretty much any Any city anywhere in the Pacific right you could be almost And so for me what's much more interesting is getting out of the city center and into the settlements And here's where things start to look really different Lay is famous for its very heavy rainfall If you have the privilege of going you will be often told by somebody welcome to rainy lay and It's unsealed roads don't fare very well in these conditions Also in the settlements. There's fairly patchy infrastructure closer to the city. You'll have electricity You might have plumbing you might not and the further out you go You're you're living in an urban environment, but not with not really with urban amenities apart from a fairly decent public transport system And so what I'm interested in as a researcher there we go is what people in the settlements of lay are doing to to Help themselves right there's not a lot of interest from Politicians for the most part unless they want unless it's an election year There's not really a lot of resources at the provincial level, you know with the best will in the world the Provincial development officers can't do a lot with the very minimal budgets that they have access to And so what I've been working on since about 2016 is kind of self-help initiatives In the settlements around lay right just because people are You know don't have access to a lot of resources Doesn't mean they can't organize themselves to to try to make things better in their communities and this is what I've been working on this for example was an effort by a local youth group to try to address a Sort of spike in attacks on vehicles kind of random attacks not not really sort of carjacking But just you know throwing rocks at vehicles and Kind of causing chaos on the main road coming out of lay So they held a big rally they there were lots of speeches. There was a lot of prayer. There was a lot of popular music And this is the kind of mix of activities that I think in my experience Papua New Guineans find really stimulating and interesting to think with right that you combine sort of pop culture with church culture with You know something that looks Might look like political action, but it's fairly apolitical. It's really just you know, we want to raise attention To a problem that we are having in our communities and how do we how do we do this? And this is Wabbe right so this is this is who I've been doing research with since 2016 who I and I hope she's on the call somewhere Me right So so a lot of the work that she and I have done in the last several years Kind of came to a grinding halt after 2019 for obvious reasons But hopefully we'll be restarted again Is working with women's groups in particular in the settlements around and and Outlying villages near lay to see what these groups were doing again to to to further their own interests in Developing their communities which in this context means keeping kids in school Keeping kids out of gangs You know, maybe getting access to some resources for their communities may be getting access to some small business loans May be getting access to some adult literacy programs different communities had different agendas But they they had a lot of things in common which was trying to support their kids and trying to support themselves to To support their kids and to support their families because there are not a lot of employment opportunities around lay So this is this is why by doing her thing. I love the photograph because it shows her in action, right? and hey Go there we go And this is this is the kind of thing that I'm hoping to look at in the future lay has very few Formal developments outside of the city center This this was one that happened by accident in the early 1980s as the result of some catastrophic flooding that happened Near the University of Technology campus and it was a rare instance of a Disaster promoting an actually creative development response in this case from Australia where some Australian planners came up with a plan to create a proper a proper Suburbans subdivision for Papua New Guinea and this was the plan they came up with and what's interesting is kind of you know The sort of how it started how it's going meme right you all know that one by now And this is this is it so that's that's that's what it looked like That's what it was supposed to look like and it's kind of come out that way Right, they they they managed to to to create this sort of honeycomb plan that the that the Australians had come up with Not all the schools and aid posts that were meant to be built have materialized and rather significantly The city of lay has seen fit to locate a dump in the southeast corner of the subdivision which Make of that what you will And so I'm quite interested in how this is again an unusual example of formal housing Growing up in one of the settlements, but most of the settlements don't look like this. This is this is this is quite unique Most of them are much more sort of DIY much more Built around Informal but significant Relationships between groups of people often it's an entire ethnic group from some part of the province Or some other part of Papua New Guinea And a local landowner to sort of to decide, you know We can build some houses here and we will lease them long lease the land long term from you So this is quite unusual And the way these kinds of relationships come up are through What I started calling efficacious personalities And here's one of my favorites. This is Ann Zeriga. She Is a community leader in one of the northern settlements of lay And wears many hats and that's that's what makes these efficacious personalities Able to do the things that they do. So she's a village court magistrate. She's a leader in her church Which one is it a seven-day Adventists? She's a leader in her church. She's She ran for a long time a marching and singing group for women who had survived domestic violence, you know To kind of get them seen in a way that was publicly sort of palatable And she's full of energy and enthusiasm. You can kind of see that in the photograph And she's one of these amazing people that Zwabe and I were meeting all over the lay settlements who are, you know Doing a lot of things with very few resources and this is something I really want to emphasize Right, this is her inaction again in her capacity as a magistrate the reason She and her fellow magistrates were looking so serious is that they're speaking to a woman who's who's just Just run away from an abusive husband Um And I'm happy to say that that dilapidated police station that they're sitting in has since been rebuilt So that's great, but I I want to underline again how How much these efficacious personalities are doing with how little In terms of what the kinds of material Um and infrastructural resources that they can muster to try to keep things working in their communities And they will also act in informal capacities this reconciliation Um meeting between two families that Zwabe and I attended in another settlement had been going on for years Kind of observed by the village court magistrates, but it was not facilitated by then It was not it was not a legal process that they were following that it was an entirely informal process Facilitated by people called committee. These are these are um a committee is one person But they can also be a member of a committee these were these uh Reconciliation meetings of this kind are facilitated by people who are appointed by the local landowner to keep peace on their block so there are entire infrastructures of um conflict resolution that exist in the settlements that Not many NGOs are for example are paying much attention to and they and they ought to because these are the ones Who are making sure that conflict doesn't break out which it occasionally does if meetings of this kind don't work And I and I've ended with this one Because one of the things that I was hoping to talk about today is how important it is to concentrate on The youth bulge in lay and elsewhere in png a huge proportion of the country's population is under 30 and This is you know, obviously a massive human resource, but also um A population who are not particularly well served by the current infrastructures educational and employment and otherwise of of the country and again when they organize to do stuff You know, whether it's an anti crime initiative or whether it's a sports day On on independence day. Everybody's wearing the png flag in this photograph Um, uh, you know, they they make wonderful things happen And the other thing I love about this photograph is it's young women um, who uh are are Also rather poorly served by the the kind of current structure of the educational system and And and some social systems. Um, and that's something I can talk about today as well If if you'd like, but it's it's great to see young women having fun And um and organizing something for themselves that is is stimulating and interesting for them. That's my last slide Thank you. That was super. Um, and I'm glad as you were speaking that there's always interest was happening behind the scenes We were trying to get some of our png colleagues online which from now I managed to do which I'm delighted by um Just like sort of one of the things that's really striking as I was sort of watching these slides sort of out of the corner of my I is What's there but also what's not there? um, and what's not there is kind of something that you and I might think about as state or government or kind of I mean you mentioned the absence of ngo's And instead what you have is these kind of efficacious personalities to use this great phrase that you have And there's another lovely phrase that you and suave used in the paper that that you published at usip about how so many of these initiatives fly under the radar of of uh of donors of the state itself because They're not visible um to us, you know, they don't have a nameplate and uh And a p.o. box and an email address and I think that's totally right. I think that's the reality of of Conflict and stability in in Papua New Guinea are these efficacious individuals. So I guess a question for you is like, how does one Whether one be the United States whether one be the United States Institute of Peace whether one be sort of People that are in institutions that are wanting to sort of help In this as part of this strategy Um that the U.S. Has how do you work with that context? How do you um, how do you? How do you ensure that you're working kind of with the grain? But also not flooding it so much that that it's um that it's that it means that the suave's of the world and the The ans or egos of the world are not able to do that the work that they do I'd love to get your thoughts on that and then I'm going to hopefully get our colleagues and p.n.g. on that Thank you for that gordon. Um I mean something something that uh continually surprised me um in my work with suave um between 2016 and 2019 in lay um is how many of these tiny Community organizations there are right there. There are and and and they're sort of awkward relationship with large Kind of national organizations. For example the um, you know poppin and guinea has a national organization of women But there there there often seems to be a disconnect between say a national body in the capital port moresby and what happens in Lay and you know, there are a lot of reasons why I was focused on lay right? It's png's second city It's the economic engine room of the country But it also just doesn't get it's not in this kind of arc light of international attention that port moresby is in and um, and so there's all these little organizations all over lay That um are doing all kinds of initiatives, whether it's um anti domestic violence, whether it's sort of you know Developing a a craft industry in a village whatever Um and nobody sees them Because they're not in port moresby and they're not big enough to attract the attention of the international donor community So they're just kind of getting on with it Right, some of them are supported by churches. That is one way to to kind of engage with these um groups This is how suave and I found them. Um, we went to a lot of church Um in order to meet people and um find out what was going on in particular communities So the church is usually the heart of sort of community organizing in a lot of the settlements Um, it's not the only Way to find people but it's the fastest way to find people Um, and especially women's groups because most churches in png have some kind of a women's fellowship or a mama group Or something of this kind And so that's how you find these organizations um In terms of how How to see them if you are a large international donor organization Um, you have to get people like suave and ruth and other people who've been working in the space for years who are local Right, um, I'm I'm a foreign researcher who one got lucky in the people that I've met and Two who's been working in papua nigani since the 1990s. So I know how to find things there Um, but if you are an organization with not a lot of time You've got to work with local actors and they can get them to introduce you to the local community leaders Um, there isn't a lot of state presence outside of the capital And outside of the provincial capitals. This is something that anthropologists like me and other social scientists working in png Have been writing about for years um, the state in png is um In some respects, um detached from a lot of um The the sort of concerns of people's everyday lives, you know, they it does its best, right? Um, but again, there are there are some structural Obstacles to sort of state efficacy in terms of getting out Again outside of provincial capitals and especially outside of port moresby to um to actually address what people are are concerned about Um, which is the stuff they're concerned about everywhere. It's education. It's health care Um, and in places like lay it's it's stuff as basic as a road that doesn't erode with every rainy rainy season um, and it's about, you know, um making sure Again kids stay in school and don't get diverted into other activities. It's really really basic stuff Um, and it's unglamorous stuff, but it's what matters Yeah, I could yeah, I mean the the word that was dancing around my mind was mundane and basic, you know Which is yeah, but again as an anthropologist. I'm focused on the everyday um, and the everyday is where Is where people are both entering problems and finding solutions. Yeah um Yeah, I mean if I wonder if you just flick back to the the map that you did of of lay the kind of google map the google map Yeah, um, because I mean the I just want to pick up on something you said melissa Which is you know how once you go beyond the provincial capital um You often rarely very see any sort of semblance of state there So when I was last in there you are lay in september last year We went out to markham bridge, which is on i'm looking at it kind of on the left Of my of my screen Um, which is sort of the the pathway to the the gold fields, you know in a way But it's really striking that once you go beyond there on these very rutted roads Um the absence of state that that there is so it almost like lay itself as its own Ecosystem, but also you've got this whole province of merube as well and sort of thinking back to the kind of strategy You've got lay obviously as the center, but you've almost got different Places in in one in one province you've got lay and then you've got merube as well I'm going to see just I'm going to check with my colleagues at the back the back of the room as to whether Zouabe and ruth are online So ruth's there. Hi ruth And no picture of zouabe no picture of zouabe Hi Gordon. Hey, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. I had to offer a silent prayer as we kind of moved her as to whether we were gonna I'm gonna gonna see you zouabe. I think is I see her name on the screen, but I don't see I don't I see if she's muted and um And has a blank screen. So um So I'll go for there. So it's great to see it's great to see you guys. I'm gonna just I know it's harder to Hey, zouabe, how are you? Hello I think this is a pretty good parable for how difficult it is to programming in Papua New Guinea because often things don't Don't work as you as you think as you think ruth it's often sort of Easier for other people to praise Other people rather than talk about yourself and that's true no matter what culture you are But Melissa's men and zouabe have mentioned this in in in their research about the importance About the We can hear you Okay, I can sort of see you sort of go sleep figures of zouabe but not not anything else What I'll do ruth is kind of ask you to maybe talk about it in zouabe's stead while we try to get her Get her connection worked out, which is one of the things that I'd love to get your reflections on it as well Melissa is one of the Themes the courses through your research in lay and through ruth's work as a kind of as a community activist as a leader is Is working on Papua New Guinea's kind of intimate partner violence problems and I mean we all know there's kind of statistics that that there is off it and But yet the work that uh that zouabe is is doing that other efficacious individuals are doing I think ruth is very much an efficacious um individual as well almost flips the script in a way and it works both works on focusing on the perpetrators of that violence and the kind of the social milieu within which that violence is is generated um Ruth I'll maybe ask you first about maybe the importance or the challenges of working in this space of kind of men's Men's behavior change and before I do I want to recognize that it's not just Papua New Guinea where this is happening I was reading the newspaper This morning here and there was talking about it was in the metro section, but it was talking about you know anti gun initiatives that are happening with kind of at-risk Youth and offenders here in the district of columbia. So it's important to kind of sometimes when we think of The place far away that actually it's the place very close to home as well But great to get your thoughts ruth first on kind of men's behavior Change initiatives and sort of you know that space because it's something I think that more and people are Are are kind of aware of but great to get your kind of on the grind perspective on that And then hopefully we'll get zouabe worked out. Well you and you and uh and melissa speak. Thank you Over to you. Thank you gordon And thank you melissa too for that a wonderful presentation on on lay I'll be speaking on my behalf, but that at the same time on zouabe's work While she's getting a video fixed When you look at Papua New Guinea and men they're deeply patriarchal. We've been in this space for a very long time We've been doing this Work where it's deeply patriarchal. This space is deeply patriarchal our gender norms are very defined Um and because of that it it's very challenging to work with men Men are told not to show their emotions and I think that this is also universal where other men are also told that men don't cry men don't do you know certain things well in Papua New Guinea is very pronounced So when you have women that have now Advanced in their roles and they're not doing the traditional roles that they're supposed to We've seen our rising numbers, especially in urban areas, which is Which is a bit You wouldn't expect this But it's actually the urban areas that we have a lot of numbers The data confirms that it's households from semi urban to urban And from especially households that you know with men that are educated women that are educated It's those households that have high incidences of gender-based violence When it comes to social accusation, then it's a rural areas. Um that has the high incidences So when you see this happening in Um urban areas it it shows that power has been reversed and because of that men don't want to talk about What it means to sort of vacate that seat where They're the ones that are in power and now they are sharing it with women and when we Opening up programs for men to actually have a safe space to talk about especially if you're a woman um A lot do not come forward. So it's either through churches or through individuals who actually respond to these, you know needs and Melissa going back to Gordon's question about I mean asking about How do we support this informal structure that is actually filling a gap? Because that's what's happening in lay you have a lot of these individuals agencies that are popping up in the communities responding to Needs in the communities whether it is in gender-based violence, whether it's in um alcoholism routine pregnancy, whether it is in, you know, all these young people that are Doing things that community deems to be criminal You see men and women rising up in their own communities Not because they want to actually be part of The so-called civil society movement and apply for funding. No, it's because they're seeing a need and they're actually responding to that need And these kind of people, uh, they don't meet your everyday Definition of organization community-based organization. They can easily apply for funding. They don't they don't meet the structural requirements of big donor agencies Neither do they even for their own countries as well. They don't but if you look at their agencies They are the ones that are actually holding the that society together. They are the ones that community looks up to In the absence of formal structures. It's these individuals these agencies fill in the gaps and And that's where a lot people like zuabe People in communities where they could be a pastor They could be a village court official. They could be a magistrate a village court Or a ward counselor or just a woman leader. Maybe part of the national council of women Whoever they are when they stand up their agency is the one that actually acts as the informal structure that provides that that form of sort of Resolve in that community and these are the people that are the champions in the community that Though they don't fall within A definition that you would say are formal They actually feel that gap and it's that challenging space that how do we now empower these individuals so that they could keep Doing what they're supposed to be doing and a lot of them are men um, and most of them are members of church like melisa said Members of churches that are doing this but then they don't like I said, they don't fall in every day 501 c3 Charity body They don't some of them. Most of them are individuals. Some of them are face faith-based Organizations or we call them FBOs or CBO community-based organizations Some of them are not even registered women's group youth group But then they do that they feel that gap where state is not present. They are and and we've got amazing examples of that right across the country I'm no So I think I think zuabe still were We're grappling with network issues. I think over and over in lay. So it's it's um, so I'll I'll maybe ask It is a classic and I think it's actually like I'm sort of I think how difficult it is to program and or do anything sometimes in pop and you're getting because there's these, you know, the Kind of catch word of the country is the land of the unexpected and sometimes that's great and sometimes it's it's not so great um Be great to kind of I think you've actually sort of given the the answer actually in a way melissa and ruth which is That there's almost like a gap here Which is there's a state and then there's these organizations That are trying to sort of that are doing the work But it strikes me that one of the sort of potential roles for anyone wanting to work in lay or work in marube or work anywhere Is to help those organizations Get the accoutrements that are kind of needed in order to you know to do that The kind of organizational spine of that and every organization needs that I mean, there's a whole group of people behind us at us ip here that are able to bring this this event together I think when when ruth was speaking and it's a it's a country that is has similarities but not entirely adjacent to pop and eugenius of team or less day where I Spent a lot of my early career where one of the most successful programs I've ever seen was a program that's now called nabila and which in tecton means light But it's a program about Helping a lot of these efficacious personalities that you're talking about become registered under the rubric of the state And helps with all the back office stuff that everyone knows that we need you know funding or not reports to funders Funding and great to get your thoughts on that and also this idea that's because there's something I think that's unique in the usa id's Policy zone kind of localization is the idea of giving core funding to organizations I'm one of the reasons why these this program works so well in team or less day was because of core funding because it enabled People who are working Very very precarious environments to not spend So much their time chasing funding because they knew that the funding was coming Yeah, this is this is really important and it also Addresses something that ruth has brought up that I think is absolutely critical Which is one the notion of a gap between kind of the the sort of good intentions of the state and setting up things like the national council of women or The you know national Sort of gender initiative and what actually happens because resources don't Don't aren't aren't devoted to these initiatives. Let's put if I can put it so bluntly But also, um, I want to bring up something That has recently been Kind of very nicely articulated to me by my own phd student. She's uh, she grew up in port moresby But she's married to lay And has recently completed a period of field work in markham bridge So this little community outside of lay that gordon pointed to on the map She's called mary firio. Um, and she when she's not doing a phd in scotland She's an officer at the national research institute in port moresby and she She's been calling my attention to A really nice concept in talk pizzen. This is the national creole language spoken all over png And the concept is a walk one time and it's just working together working together As partners Walk one time does not um, it's not a top down relationship. It's not a patron client relationship. It is we we are working Together at at at the same time. Um, and this is something that mary was hearing over and over again from the women community leaders She was speaking to in and outside of lay Who were expressing I suppose exhaustion would be a good word In terms of the relationships that they had had With development partners who were expecting these community leaders to Muster their own resources and I want to stress these are not people with lots of resources Um, they muster their relationships get women together to have meetings with ngos endless meetings endless meetings so many meetings Um to talk to the ngos and talk about what the problems were and then So get those women in send those women back home provide food provide shelter um for these meetings And kind of the non recognition that they were getting from their development partners in these processes And um, what's really important to to to do In this space if you're going to seriously Engage with the people who are filling that gap as as ruth has put it Is to work with them And to recognize what they do and to compensate them for the Tremendous amounts of labor that they put into getting people together for ngos to talk to um And not just to compensate them but to sort of stay in touch with them to have an ongoing relationship Papua New Guinea runs on social relationships. I this this is a truism But it's it's both um where the sources of conflict are and it's where the sources of stability are And the way that people become efficacious personalities is the number of different kinds of relationships That they are able to muster in order to get stuff done and fill in those gaps of That of service provision that you might normally expect to be the job of the state But that doesn't really happen that way in png Yeah, I've got this sort of vision plan around in my mind of one of those giant swiss army knives that you've got To be in order to kind of move right different different things. So abhi. Are you there? No, oh my goodness You know, so praise the lord We've been talking about you. Well, we've been Doing about the work on men's behavior change I'd love to sort of get your thoughts on on that And also maybe would be great to get you to talk a little bit about We've talked a lot Melissa's talked a lot about lay the city at the heart of morobe province city at the heart of Papua New Guinea But also to get us if you could paint some pictures for us of what the Morobe province looks like beyond Beyond lay you told me a wonderful story last week about a community that came down from Finchhaven Which is you know, one of these sort of old German settlements And the challenges they had so great to get your your your sort of thoughts on that And then what we're going to do for the audience in the room and for people Online is we're going to sort of try to throw it out to to people here to ask questions to To zwaabe to Ruth to to Melissa if you're online, then it's a matter of typing in your question and our colleague megan here will Will will read it read it out for for us. So That's just kind of a preview of what's going to happen after zwaabe finishes speaking But over to you zwaabe great to see you and great glad that you're able to join us Thank you. I think it's the real challenge that we have here in halei city We don't have good internet and electricity. So These are what the the realities we are experiencing here anyway with um male behavior program that i'm overseeing here in lay um The purpose i'm focusing on male is because um the male nation culture and the christian religious belief Is um kind of embedded in the in depth Where it influences a lot of male's attitude and behavior So generally men as fathers and husbands they play a significant role in leadership and decision making and Because they're instilled with this strong self-ego most times they're misinformed and misled And they don't realize women Would play similar roles as them And share that responsibility with them But i'm true modernization. We have seen i mean there's a change coming up with men in the attitude towards women um basically The the training that i'm i'm usually running is focusing on um seeing men as solutions to the problem and not problems themselves so it's like um helping men to realize the potentials that they have in them and Create positive changes with what they have so um They're able to create any course a space that is equal for women to participate with them in decision making and leadership so um while you know Implementing this um program over almost 10 years i've realized that Culture is something that we cannot change easily And it's like rooted said it's deeply rooted in in men and And with the ego that they have um Most of the time we struggle with it in helping them to understand and that women can do Similar things as they are and they can give us a space to participate equally with them especially in um decision making yep, um recently we Had a conflict out in one of the rural districts outside of lay and um, there was a Kind of a fight between tribe tribes and um It had been going on for years from the leaders that um I've Interviewed it. It was around like almost eight years. They've they've been having that fight in the village and it had not been solved until just recently um, the the community leaders came Into the city and asked if one of the um officers from the community development the president of the youth council to go and you know do some intervention and mitigate the violence and um negotiate for peace between the tribes so um Just today I had an interview with him Just to understand what he will be doing when he gets home to address this issue and he told me it's it's not the formal system that we'll be using to um mitigate this violence and Bring the two parties together to establish peace they He told me there's a traditional Approach that they will use where they will work with the cultural leaders like people from the village um, they have they hold specific roles in in different areas In in the community and he had to go through those leaders to um negotiate on each side of the tribe and calm them down before he can go in and bring them all together to um Talk about peace and establish that um peace So it was quite interesting because it was um everything that They were going to do or they will be doing is connected to culture and tradition and With the process that they're going to use it's it's like none of the modern concept is is in there so it's it's like Everything is about culture and tradition. It's like going back to um Our ancestral days to address this issue So what he told me was this issue came about because of you know Culture and traditional reasons So we have to go back to the root and address it in that manner So we can you know mitigate this violence and Bring about peace in the community So, um Just to give you a general picture like um in lay we It's a city and The population there is Multicultural we have the international community and the national And we have the 22 provinces here in the city When you go out to the rural districts um Small towns out from the city It's made up of um indigenous population and they are very rich in culture So the approaches that we use in the city are quite different from those in the rural In the city, they usually resolve the formal court system or village court to solve problems But in the village they use that village court system which our government approves And they use a lot of um traditional approaches to approach them violence situations in the community So and we did I see that the chief density um leadership is still significant here Because when I found out from the person that I interviewed today He came from I mean he's an inheritance of a chief And he holds that um leadership value where the the both parties who were in conflict They recognized that from um What he inherited from his um ancestors as chief So even though he was in town working in town um Because the problem went on for so long They had to call him to the village to sort out that issue and with respect to what he holds as a chief And an an ancestor of a chief that the community respect they had to Um bring him in to bring these two tribes together to resolve the issue So that was uh Something that interesting to learn today from this particular person From the government So the government kind of they depend on such people to to get into the community to resolve conflicts Um the officers themselves usually don't go down and speak to the people So um bring about peace it's the community leaders that uh community respects They give them this um space of authority to you know mitigate violence and bring about peace between two parties that come Into conflict. Yeah, right. Thank you so much. I'm really glad that we kind of persisted and kept you on because I think that It's such a great story that has so many different I think it probably resonates with so many Different people in different ways, but for me it shows that You know that you know beyond the tarmac road the importance that there is off You know of of customary authority and even on the tarmac road the fact that the importance of customary authority And also it kind of resonates with the point that that you made melissa about the unpaid labor because this individual that Is working on this I guess he's being paid by the By the chief but to do that it requires You know a huge amount of you know did you sell credit for one for one thing to begin with so it's 9 30 here it's 11 30 at night in in papa new guinea and I'm really pleased that our so many people are still on online Um, I didn't really invite you always always dread asking this because there's always this sort of deathly silence But the um some questions from the audience Um, whether you're online Um, uh, or if you're if you're on thing and please identify yourself Come in i'm going to look at megan for sort of to see if we've got him But I can see somebody moving with his hand to the microphones. That's encouraging Thank you To the presenters and thank you gordon. Uh, my name is uh, jim dala jackman I'm a consultant working on fragility and resilience in the pacific including uh, papa guinea in in the autonomous region of boganville So, um, I have not yet been to morabi province But when the earth moves as it did last September over an ror we lose our internet So we're all connected uh in various ways um in boganville I work with community government and for those who are not familiar with community government in boganville It is very unique because it has equal numbers of men and women And currently 45 of the 47 chairs of community government are women And if you look at those 45 chairs, uh, and the two deputy chairs I think you find 45 or 47 Very efficacious women, um, their community organizers. They're incredibly well networked Uh, so, uh One observation or two questions, uh, I think ruth mentioned That some of the efficacious, uh, uh, personalities are ward members So and gordon has noted, uh, the the gap between the state and the communities So I just be interested to know more because one of the the people you cited was a magistrate Hear more about some of the growing connections between the formal institutions of state including local government And these efficacious personalities, uh, and how important getting them into local government, for example Would be to acquiring more of the resources or getting access to more of the resources of the state for their communities The second question in related to that is, um, some of the most efficacious, uh, uh, women I see Not in necessarily their capacities with community government in boganville, but as chairs of the, uh, the school board, uh Get access to the national members funds and the, uh, Boganville house of representative members funds Which is the main appears to be the main source of state funds that they can get into their communities So how is that working in morabe? Okay. Thank you. So No, I'm so delighted that you were almost jumped out of the chair because you look so excited to answer the question I'm going to give it over to you Thank you. Um, you know, on on the point of, um, this this this large, um, representation of women that you're seeing in, um, in, in, um, Community and local government bodies in in boganville. Um, you know, this Anthropologists have have kind of banged on about the importance of social organization for as long as our discipline has existed And this is one of the reasons why Boganville is matrilineal The internal diversity of poppin and guinea and its neighboring, um islands, uh, is is something that is, you know, attracted people like me for over 100 years Um, and one of the reasons that this really matters in the present day is that it will have effects on how representation in in in both community organizations and local government will look and how it will work um, so Boganville is one of the um Part of the sort of matrilineal fringe around poppin and guinea. So you actually have what that means is that women own land This is really important. Um, and that land ownership moves through them And so this does inflect things like local politics in really interesting ways. I just wanted to mention that But also, um in terms of to your question about Um The relationship between people holding both formal and informal roles as efficacious personalities and serving as What gordon described as the sort of swiss army knife approach to getting things done if you've got lots of different functions that you can fulfill Um A bit of shameless self promotion. I've edited a book about this That is coming out later this year with the australian national university press It's called grass roots law in poppin and guinea watch this space And in this book myself and the other authors who contributed to it are writing about exactly this issue of how particular um formal structures such as the village courts, um, which were introduced at independence in 1975 have Integrated in really interesting and sometimes unexpected way with local ways of doing things of the kind that zhwabbe has been describing Right, so you might get somebody with some kind of hereditary leadership position Who's then um also sometimes holding a village court role or is kind of Coordinating with people who are village court officials to try to resolve conflict And often one of the things that comes up again and again in that book that will come out later is that While on the one hand village courts and village court officials in png Might be described as exceeding their jurisdiction in strictly legal terms and yes, they are But also they have to Because there isn't anyone else doing what they're doing especially in rural parts of the country or especially in Far-flung provinces that are far from any provincial capital or the national capital or in an autonomous region like boganville where Which uh, uh has a Interesting relationship with the papani guinean state. Let's put it that way. So The people who are actually out in rural areas in Provinces that don't have big powerful capitals like lei um, they are dependent on These efficacious personalities who might hold Hold some kind of official capacity. They might be a village court official. They might be a ward counselor. These are really often Really important brokers between State and and Local communities when they're doing their jobs and when they can get the attention of the state and Who also? undertake a great deal of Again unrecognized always unpaid all of this is a voluntary labor In order to do things like resolving conflicts between groups of the kind that zoabe was Describing so there's there's there's a sense in which people who hold official roles as say magistrates or ward counselors Have to also take on A lot of unofficial duties in order to make things work in their communities Okay, great. Um, thank you. That was very nicely done with the plug for your book as well. Um Megan is our Colleague here is is being fending questions online and I think we'll probably try to ask these to to Ruth and uh, and zoabe so hope your internet connection is good So you can kind of hear it coming from on high Megan over to you Yes, so we have a question from Robert Baskins who asks within urban areas Are there any formal efforts within grade schools to normalize perceptions of women as equal to men? I'd want to hand that over to zoabe and ruth first because they'll have more recent experience of this than I do I'll go first and um, zoabe can uh go on later so There is a lot of effort that is being done right we've got organizations like the voice ink Which is based in a lot of universities that does some leadership as well as Civic education, but also talks about the role of Women as leaders We also have another organization called equal playing field, which is about making an organization as well It's doing an amazing job around Seeing girls As equal to men and it's always been part of I think even in schools girls are encouraged by their parents and Most urban areas, but in rural areas, I think that's that's a challenge Again, you're looking at tribal Where girls have to go to another tribes land to go to for education Parents would favor the boys do that because it's much safer for boys Not so much for girls But in urban areas there is a lot of um There is a lot of work in encouraging girls And and also there's a lot of Finding that has been put into this space as well for girls education, which is very encouraging to see That is also encouraging a lot of girls to go to school as well and and you know Getting parents to see the value that a girl adds To her own family to her own life as well as their own family as well So I think I'll ask um So what we're to probably add on Suspicious frozen scream look. Um, well, well we wait. I'm gonna Megan's Told me that we've got one more question and I'll sort of maybe get throw that from get Megan to ask the question And maybe if there's any others from the audience grateful if you could identify yourselves then we maybe might take a kind of I can't remember what the collective nine for a lot of questions is but like we'll take two or three questions and and um, I'm put them to our Team and then I want to ask Ruth a little question about the other province that is at the center of this Uh, us effort um and strategy, which is hella province, which is adjacent to your Your home province in the highland. So we'll come back to you on on that. I'm just giving you the kind of five minute warning Ruth So this question comes from shiera litman who asks what are potential and or emerging threats and challenges to The security of papa new guinea with increasing tension in the end of pacific Place is kind of quiet. Hi. Um, melissa. Really nice to meet you. I'm camilla poli. I work on the pacific islands team here um Ruth and zoaba really nice to see your faces um, I wanted to ask a question about um, you talked about these efficacious personalities and you know All of the work being done in lay Um, and it struck me that when we were there last year, um, you know, there were so many communities from all over Papua New Guinea in lay now and and maybe you could talk about um, and ruth and zoaba could talk about Um, you know, how lay is becoming kind of a microcosm of papa new guinea and you know, what lessons lay people in lay have to teach Um, you know other places as well Thank you. Okay, great Any more One more First of all, thank you so much. I'm a human geographer in africanists. So much of what you shared paid my heart in mind saying Um, I have so many questions. We try to sort that my head, but I have one That is tied. Um, if you think about the wps the women peace and security agenda the relationship between protection and participation And what it means when there is so much Happening that relies on these individuals and there are certain vulnerabilities as women or otherwise What has protection looks like and then beyond like um, participation in local government and that kind of institutional realization um, what examples, um, might you be able to share of like movement building or alternative types of I don't know cooperatives or other coming together where it goes beyond the individual Um, if you are able to share that'll be lovely I realized I didn't choose the most strategic Seat if I was actually going to ask a question Samantha Schasberger from usa 8 and I sit in our democracy human rights and governance center. Um, and thank you so much for your presentations It's been very thought provoking for me. I will admit um, coming to this from my background. I was struck by um Putnam has a seminal work on making democracy work and talks a lot about social capital and volunteerism as well And when we think about communities and the importance of volunteerism Both for democracy for economic development And for social cohesion And so I was struck by the comment about working with the grain and this question of how does one not Overwhelm but also, you know informal institutions are not bad it's this question right of that balance of Should one try And formalize or how does one let the informal institutions let the effective people be effective institutions Let them be agents and Keep the spirit of volunteerism that pulls communities together and helps people move forward And I was struck by the comment on resources just that, you know time is a resource energy is a resource And and so it's recognizing also that those are resources But as as an actor as a donor in terms of of as one's thinking about this local actors and how to work with the grain And how to keep that that very important spirit there so so I just kind of wanted to throw that out under the heading of There was a comment on formalizing and you know the many kind of steps that go into that And and the idea of building a movement versus just letting it be that there are lots of actors Which can be many points of resilience, but then how do you help in terms of building on? Um and empowering in as much as you can without taking away any agency Or being problematic. Thanks Okay, great. So we've got four sort of good questions. Um, and it's a kind of like dealer's choice as to who wants to answer them Got the this that really I think profound question about these kind of thousand points of light We're in the bush building. So we got it. That's it I'm free as that we're of the the of these efficacious personalities. How do you not smother? Then we've got which is a kind of a a jason to niggas question about Sort of wps social protection. We've got camilla's really good question Um about how and we put this in the paper set of edited papers that melissa and suave's Paper is in that there's much for poppin. You need to teach the world In terms of successful conflict resolution and mitigation As well We were in some settlements in lay and the ability to use these kind of social capital to kind of Sort of weave together cement together Work was really extraordinary. So I've got that question Then we've got a kind of broader more kind of strategic question about kind of sort of indopacific Papua New Guinea's role In that from the from the floor so I'm going to throw it to Ruth first which which are the questions would you like to would you like to Give it a cracker and then a last swabe and then last melissa I'll go for the last one So Working with the agents that are already doing the work in the community without sort of suffocating them or Suppressing The fluidity in the work that they're doing But then at the same time we run the risk of Not supporting a program that can be sustainable So it can work both ways You want them to be part of a structure so that it can be sustained Because you're looking at one person The agency of one person or should something happen to that person then what happens to the athletes Unless it is passed on or unless it is part of a structure Then it can easily be taken up by another person that comes along And that's the challenge that we face but then publicly is a relation relational Society it's communal What we do and how we do things is with the people that we know So everyone is encouraged as young as you are by the time you're three years old As an as a hello woman. I am encouraged by my family by my mother's that By the time i'm three i'm supposed to have one or two uncles of mine that I already would start doing Dealing with whether I give them a pig or they give me something in return And then I start doing exchange when I am five i'm seven i'm nine eight whatever it is But we as young as we are we are taught to start building on relationship And that's what makes it. I think Melissa touched on that earlier It's those networks that we build are the ones that actually helps us sustain us in that space that we find ourselves in To try to make something And start helping our communities Even though it runs the risk of again going back to what I said earlier once the risk of not being sustained Because should anything happen to me as a peace builder or a community organizer Then that's it the efforts that I do will now Can either be taken up by someone but then it might not be taken up by someone because what I do might go with me And that's the risk that we run but at the same time. It's also we don't want to be we don't want to Get these those efforts or those agencies and make them part of our structure that confines them restricts them restricts their The fluidity in which they are able to sort of network and pull in Different lots of people because it's people that does the work and in in public We have a saying that say it's not what you know, but it's whom you know And though we also rely on another statement for one talk system For us, it's not one talk system For us it's the safety net The people that you know and you deal with they are your safety net and that's what we as a as a As a society and as a as a people that we rely on other people So if I am to set up something then I bring in the people that I know or bring in the people They know who will now bring in the people they know So it's we go through the people we know to get the people that we don't know Or should be part of the work that we're doing and that's why it's really important that While we want to make these agencies Part of a structure we also want to support the work they're doing so that they are not hindered By by bringing them into a rigid structure to say that okay, this is how you apply for fundings and this is how you do reports and This is how you should be you should be an entity and not an individual By doing that we could also like I said suffocate the work that they're doing to the point that it might also be become meaningless Okay, great. This is the catch 22 the sort of fundamental dilemma at the the core of this. So are we are you still there? Correct. Um, do you want to talk about maybe about the correct sort of issue about so lay and how This sort of social capital the Camilla's question That there are in communities and I'll give you the final question Which is the kind of broader strategic question. I know you as an anthropologist love answering questions like this Yes, in lay People I mean credit. I mean culturally we depend on each other For safety and everything When it comes to violence What I noticed because I work mostly in the community and I live also in the community, especially in the settlement What I noticed when it comes to violence Men knows who they they go for they know their enemies and they go for them. They don't just come in, you know I take anybody else so The last fight that we had The election related fight and there were women there, but The fight was just between men and Men got killed and you know, all those happenings came about Women were just like pushed to the corner or you know, they can push for safety somewhere but with um relatives or friends or something and the violence okay, so um like Ruth said we we we kind of um We know each other and we know our enemies too. We know who are our friends and we know who are our enemies But when it comes to violence and men fight they they don't usually involve women They they fight themselves And women just move into places to take cover and they go for safety with um other friends Yeah, so that's for um Women's um security at the community level But otherwise like when you see it from the outside, it's like we are exposed to any danger There is no formal security provided to you know, protect us um For the services that we have formal services that we have the the safe houses are usually for the Internet partner violence women who survive internet partner violence. They usually take um protection and safety there, but not With the you know community violence where there's a big fight and the women's um Safety is at risk. We don't we don't take uh safety in in such um environment That is um available out there so the services are kind of um Targeted targeted at the the programs that each institution is running And it's it's not open to you know accommodate other Other type of violence. I would say Yeah, so um get with women's security, but um Going to the last question Our friend asked about you know the community groups that are in the community Most groups are informal and and they do things from you know out from passion They see issues and problems in the community and they get together to you know work together as a team voluntarily to address those issues But when it comes to resources, um They find it difficult to access them Even though like They have the government out there They usually go up to the offices to ask for assistance to you know do the what they are doing at the community But they don't usually get um The resources that they need because they are informal in context so um Most times the government usually tell them you go back and get yourself formalized get your groups registered and you know become a cbo or an association something And organize the registered group So we can be able to support you So these are the challenges that uh, you know community groups informal community groups are experiencing But when you look at it when when service providers like NGOs or government when they get into the community to implement They usually utilize those people at the community and there is no um Pay for the labor that they're doing in the community So that's that's one thing that I see that's um a bit unfair and injustice to the the people who are serving the community voluntarily but um I'm kind of playing some little role in helping the community to understand how things work out how they can connect to the formal system and get help from like either NGOs or donor agencies or government So like if they have a group, you know, we we come and work together um Find out about the interests What they're looking at working on and then we formalize help them formalize the group And then we support them to go to appropriate, you know Service product providers who have resources and then they get support from them And one of the examples of the group that I assisted and we um supported them to get them formalized was um Is that human rights defenders association of um papa nikini That was when I was with you and women and the members of that association were Like um village court magistrate Law and order committees. They were working like voluntarily in the communities in ncd Just serving like every other volunteers They were struggling with resources like printing typing of documents and bringing those um statements to the court to present it. Um, yeah and um We were having discussion. I was having discussion with them and they came up with this um Initiative to get an association registered and get them formalized so this is where um I've seen one, you know, one local group like a community group getting themselves organized and formalize themselves to be able to, you know, have access to resources and funding from A bigger organization. Yeah, great. Thank you. Um, melissa the just the kind of the sort of wider sort of papa nikini within the kind of Indo-Pacific world and then ruth. I'd like to ask you just to probably we've got about five minutes left but to um to close just with some observations about the differences or and similarities that that you see between Morobe province, which we spent the last You know hour and a half discussion and and hella Where you are and then we're going to close Before I get to say good morning to people in papa nikini because I know it's midnight very soon All right, I think what I'm going to try to do is scale up from what ruth and suabe have been talking about in order to ask this kind of strategic question um It's already been observed by some of you and I would agree that um morabe and and lay in particular is an extremely diverse City people in lay like to say all of papa nikini is here because it has been a magnet for um domestic immigration for a long time um, and also when suabe and I were taking some of our Work back in 2016 and 2017 to port morseby and showing Pictures of churches in lay to women in port morseby The first thing that the women in morseby observed was how ethnically diverse that the the churches in lay are so this is this is speaking to Something that's always been an interest of mine, which is how enthusiastic people in papa nikini are for making relationships with with others Right, not not just in your own ethnic group not just in your own church But uh people people people outside. How do you make all these connections that ruth is talking about that are actually what create Safety right the more connections you have the safer you are the fewer connections you have the more vulnerable you are And this is true of you know people of any gender people of any ethnic group in png the more connections the safer you are the more The fewer connections the the more vulnerable you are now. Let's scale that up Right png wants connections with the rest of the pacific traditionally the connection is with australia The the former colonial power And if you go back a little it's a complex colonial history scratch the surface of that and the connections are with the uk and germany Which are still there. Um, those are extant connections um So those are the obvious ones for png but png wants other connections that aren't just these small handful of countries Um, and if you again, I I've I've mentioned the second world war But if you go to the war cemetery in lay, there's people from all over the world buried there and that was The the engagement with the war for papa nikini was both cataclysmic obviously It was a world war But also a moment of discovery of people from all over the world who came to them ask them to fight Ask them to help with the fight And and and was a moment of I think uh intense learning about the potentiality of international connections for png And this is something that png has always sought and it will seek these connections with anybody who's willing to engage again As equals yeah walk one time And um, what what is sought now are connections with countries Yes, australia, but not just australia who are willing to engage with png as an equal partner Whether it's in terms of economic efforts, whether it's in terms of fighting climate change um, and whether it's in terms of um You know possibly resisting the blandishments of some of its more powerful neighbors So this but this is about connecting as as as partners right not we're going to tell you what to do um, papa nikini and papa nikini is from politicians right down to local community leaders Justifiably resist being instructed in how those relationships should work which sometimes results in political actions that may look a little baffling To to to people who aren't there, but it's about finding people who are willing to engage and engage in a sustained way Not we're going to do this one development project and leave, but we're going to be partners for the long term That's a very clever way of answering that question. Um Ruth just to close off for some thoughts on on hella, uh, and then we'll we'll conclude in a in a in a couple of minutes So hella is like a country on its own even within papa nikini hella province is actually the name hella is Part of the name of one of the largest tribes in papa nikini It covers people in of five provinces Um, but the province the huli people got the name and then call their province hella Enga is part of hella parts of southern islands is part of the hella tribe Are parts of western province and gulf province are part of the hella tribe Um, and these people traditionally are from five sons five sons of hella founded in um, 2012 um, hella province was part of the lmg negotiation um, the hella people said well now we have the largest lmg find Um here in in png so we want our own province to be able to manage our own resources So they got their province in in 2012 therefore about four districts They've got margarima, koroba, kopiago, tari pori, and um And again hella province borders about five provinces, but there's only one road link And one one thing I must also make clear. He is that um Ella is like at the dead end. So you drive to ella There's no other way you you come back the same way that you go in And that's that makes it really hard because it's not open It makes it a very challenging place to be able to even policy Um speaking of hella hella people speak one language. So it's the police language Whereas I think morobe and zua beckon correct me on this morobe speaks about 27 languages The reason why I talk about the languages is to give you a background into what Working as a community activist in Papua New Guinea is like You're dealing with more than 850 Languages and I'm not talking about dialects dialects in Papua New Guinea is about 2000 plus We own one six of the world's languages. So dealing with communities that have their own languages It's really difficult because the way they interpret things is also different So you got to be embedded in that community to be able to come up with solutions meant for that community. That's why it's really important to support Peace builders or champions from that community now hella Because it is one language speaking group that tribes right across the five The five districts are actually They're inter related interconnected Lately since 2012 2006 about when ExxonMobil went into The province there was a lot of cash flows Now with the cash flows came a lot of problems as well. Now. This is a a society that Tolerated violence they deal with for them conflict resolution meant taking it out on the battlefield first They don't negotiate. They don't have dialogues They actually do the action first and then talk about it later and then compensate if they killed the wrong person or Misunderstood. So this is a society that thrived on violence now they In the 2000 when when Exxon came and people started getting money and by the way 86% of the land in Papua is owned by tribal tribal Communities so you can imagine hella province is owned by tribal communities So the tribes were paid their royalty. Now. This is a society that never used to have say $30 Now they were flooded with cash. They had hundreds of dollars that were passing through The community because they were getting the royalties. They were getting money from the government and they were getting dues from the department of petroleum and Because money was coming into the community It also not only because people were not prepared for it It actually produced or Made a lot of People Look for ways in which to spend their money And one of the ways that they did was also started buying guns Like I said earlier, this is a society that Believed in tribal warfare and So they have their machetes and they have the bows and the arrows But now they had the means to buy guns which was more powerful than that So right now in in hella one of the biggest challenges is the pro proliferation of guns all right Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. I feel I feel bad to sort of almost to cut you off in mid flogus You're so fluid and so elegant in the way that you In the way that you speak and I was so much listening to you I wasn't paying attention to the time where it's we've gone four minutes over. So without further ado I'm going to thank our three Speakers you can find as well they and Ruth on our on our website Um, you can find melissa on the san andrew's website all three and I've just got wonderful insights And thank you all for for for getting up early and for for staying up late and thank you to everyone here and and online Goodbye