Bougainville has, since 1989, been the scene of a civil war, started over the control of a large copper mine in the centre of the island. There were many sides to the war and it resulted in a climate of distrust and suspicion. By 2001, peace returned to Bougainville and the rebuilding processes began. Many young men had been soldiers of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) during the fighting and had begun their military career at the age of thirteen, the age they should have started high school.

Marists (sisters, brothers and priests) have been highly visible on Bougainville for a long time, the Brothers in particluar, since 1942. Three Brothers lost their life there during World War II. They were last seen being taken away by enemy soldiers.

There are two schools on Bougainville, St Joseph's at Mabiri, and Bishop Wade Secondary School at Tarlena.

 

PNG National Brothers make up all of the community at Mabiri and are assisted by loyal staff.

120 students are enrolled in the high school. These students are trying to start up again after being in the civil war. They are now in their 20s and have missed out in much of their education. They have to be ex-soldiers to gain entrance to St Joseph’s and Brother Ken, a qualified trauma counsellor, supports them.

Another forty are students of the Vocational Centre. They follow a practical course, which is designed to help them develop skills that will be of economic benefit to their communities when they return. They have built most of the school from nothing, starting with the milling of their timber with a portable sawmill and finishing with the construction of dormitories, classrooms and teacher housing.

Much of what has been achieved at Mabiri has been through the help of Government organisations (such as AusAID) and Non-Government Organisations from Australia and other countries. Marist students in Australia have been the initiators in providing the development funds necessary to help with this process. Without such generous help there would have been nothing for the larger funding agencies to see, nothing to support.

 

In the middle of the Bougainville crisis in 1997, in an effort to establish some signs of good order and civil society on Bougainville, AusAID accepted a submission to build a secondary college on the northern tip of the main island at Tarlena.

Mrs Bernadette Ropa, a local woman, was the main instigator of this project and she called upon the Marist Brothers to assist her. School was established in an old primary school building, with the boys living in a diocesan centre at Tsiroge about three kilometres away.

Brother Ken McDonald established the boys’ dormitories and Mrs Ropa looked after the girls’ at Tarlena. Later, AusAID agreed to purpose-build a new school on the site of the bush classrooms that originally made up the primary school. Thus was established a secondary college of about 500 students catering for students from years 9 to 12.

Because the school is relatively new, many of the initial establishment projects have been completed. The school, however, still needs to develop agriculture and self-reliance projects so that students who may not be successful in obtaining one of the limited tertiary education opportunities on offer in the country can have a productive life back in the villages.

Marists have been a part of the school since its completion. A community of Bougainvillean Brothers take a special pastoral interest in the students and assist in the running of it.

Tarlena is the closest Marist-associated school to the main town centre on Bougainville, Buka. It is, however, separated by Buka Passage, and is serviced only by a very poor road. This means that Tarlena would have the least effective means of communication of all Marist projects in the District of Melanesia. The aim is to improve this situation by facilitating radio communication and email.

It is ironic that Tarlena was the site of the first establishment of Marist ministry on the island of Bougainville. Brother Ken Eaton, who now lives in Ashgrove, can remember going there immediately after World War II, and establishing a teachers’ college for local people to aid in the development of education on Bougainville island.

We are asked to continue our partnership with the Marist students on Bougainville. Some Australian students have already been on an immersion experience to further develop their relationship with their fellow Marist students.

 

Since 2002 MAPS has been engaged in a program of teacher development funded by Australian students supported by AusAID in collaboration with the Marist Mission Centre of the Marist Fathers. For three years leadership development programs were conducted and out of this, the need for Educational Resource Centres in remote areas was established. Six of these were set up in 2006 and in 2007 we begin an expansion of that process with the beginning of “Project Sankamap". The project will provide education on Bougainville with the tools that it so badly needs.