It takes one and half hours by banana boat to get to Yambo village which is surrounded by 13 other villages in the area with a total population of around 12,000 people. The launch of these classrooms brings the number of elementary schools to benefit from the new infrastructure provided by the Digicel Foundation to 45 nationwide.

For the first time, the children of Yambo Elementary school will be able to enjoy permanent new classrooms with library books for them to read as well as much needed school resources. The new concept classroom consists of two spacious rooms with an office in the middle for teachers to use. The classrooms were provided with a library of 300 books each, kindly donated by NGO Hope Worldwide, as well as a school blackboard and slates. All the children were also given a Digicel Foundation school string bag containing school stationeries that included exercise books and a pencil case containing writing aids.

Hundreds of people from the Yambo community and neighbouring villages attended and participated in the special opening ceremony. The kit-structure classrooms and related basic school materials were funded at a total cost of K60, 000 and will cater for up to 50 young children from this rural area.

Yambo Elementary school started in 1992 and was officially registered in 1996. The school consists of three bush material classrooms with dirt ground built by the community themselves. School materials are very limited in this remote part of Morobe Province as transport logistics are not easy. There are 125 children currently enrolled in three classes: Elementary Prep, and Elementary 1 and 2 who are looked after by three dedicated registered teachers. The School Board and community are very active and involved in the operations and maintenance of the school.

Marina van der Vlies, CEO of the Digicel Foundation said; “The Yambo community have shown that they can be self reliant and look after their children’s basic education by providing them with elementary school classrooms and much needed educational resources. The bush material classrooms already built and maintained by the community, demonstrate their high level of organization and commitment. We target and work with those communities that are self reliant by providing them with better resources which will help them develop to become even stronger communities for the future.”

The Digicel Foundation singles out those communities that are active in helping themselves with the little resources they have. The Digicel Foundation’s main focus is to initiate projects that will provide opportunities and inspire a positive and vibrant future for the communities within PNG. The Digicel Foundation believes that as the Digicel company grows, the communities in PNG should grow as well.

To date the Digicel Foundation has funded 33 Community Learning Centres, 26 primary school and 45 elementary school infrastructure projects; four Mobile Health Clinics, four Womens Resource Centre projects and six Family Support Centres. The Foundation also runs sustainability programs aimed at building capacity within the communities that they work.The Digicel Foundation plans to continue the funding of community projects in the area of basic education and health aiming to support communities as they become more self-reliant in the future.