Published: November 25, 2019

I have been working as a Technical Advisor at the Diocese of Daru-Kiunga, Western Province in Papua New Guinea since July 2018. Today I would like to tell you more about a project I am currently involved in. Together with local leaders of the village and women representatives, we are working on providing expanded and improved health-care service to the people of Bosset and the catchment villages. That’s the reason why we are going to establish a new Health Centre.

The Bosset Sub Health Center serves a population of approximately 10.000 people since the 1960s. It is located in the Bosset Lagoon, Middle Fly District, Papua New Guinea near the border to Western Papua and its catchment area includes the villages Aimbak, Mipan, Wagini, Mapuram, Kuem, Manda and Wangawanga.

The Bosset lagoon is a very remote place. The station can only be reached by boat on the Fly River or by a chartered plane, as there is no road connection to Bosset. The existing Health Centre is too small and in bad conditions to properly meet the needs of all the people it should attend. So we got together with local leaders of the village and women representatives and made a plan that could meet the needs of the middle Fly population. In general, the facilities must be extended and renewed. The old Health Centre will be refurbished and transformed into staff houses. The collaboration with the local population will be held up through out the entire planning and building process. It is mandatory to make special efforts to include gender equality, women’s empowerment and social inclusion (GESI) as integral parts of the project. The donor Incentive Fund – Phase 4 has introduced a new requirement that 80 per cent of all funded projects need to have a focus on empowering women and girls. Partner Organisations must make it their business to consult and involve women and monitor women’s views.

The new facility will serve approximately 28.000 people from the Bosset lagoon and the surrounding villages including areas of Western Papua. Staffing will increase from 5 to 13 health workers.

The proposal for the New Bosset Health Centre was approved by Incentive Fund – Phase 4 on the 30th of November 2016. The donor IF4 is an Australian aid initiative on behalf of the Australian Government. So far, the Bosset Health Centre is the largest project in the history of the Diocese of Daru-Kiunga and is still ongoing until 2020.

Finally, I would like to give you a better impression of what I have just introduced you to by featuring the following photo series:

I am also happy to inform you that the project got featured for the online exhibition of the “Local Project Challenge”. We participated in the call from two Universities – the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD), The Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York and the Faculty of Architecture, Federal University (PROARQ), Rio de Janeiro. They were looking for projects that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And we were lucky to get selected. They did a very nice job in dipicting the project. It is definitely worth a visit: http://localprojectchallenge.org/bosset-health-centre/

Do you happen to work in similar projects? Or do you have any experiences related to this one? Let’s talk about them in the comments below!