Working together to end poverty and injustice

Rebuilding Bougainville

Cosmas Piri’s sense of despair as a young school leaver reflected the feelings of many young people in Bougainville in the late 1990s. Nine years of civil unrest disrupted or destroyed much of Bougainville’s infrastructure – health, water, sanitation, education, transport and communication. Thousands of people had died. The economic impact was enormous and the physical, psychological and cultural damage will take many years to heal.

“Since leaving school at grade 12 in 1997, I wondered what it would be like in the future for a young boy like me, without real village experience and no job experience or skills. I did not have much hope. Just to wait and hope for an opportunity to come my way,” said Cosmas.

Nine years of civil unrest in Bougainville denied many children the opportunity for an education. But as the country is rebuilt, future generations will get that chance.

Like Cosmas, Ben Kinah and Basil Peso joined Oxfam NZ’s Bougainville Programme (ONZBP) as Trainee Training and development Officers. Ben and Basil had both earlier withdrawn from studies at the height of the crisis and stayed at home on Bougainville throughout the years of civil unrest. “I was one of the ‘missed outs’,” says Ben.

Despite the extreme difficulties of working in a post-conflict environment, they and other ONZBP employees are well-liked in Bougainville and have a positive reputation for working fairly with communities. Over the past five years, local ONZBP staff have acquired skills and knowledge in community development through on-the-job training and experience and, in some instances, formal training through distance learning at New Zealand institutes.

One of the great strengths of the team has been their willingness to take the time to sit and listen and consider the concerns of local communities. From the beginning, the team developed a strategy for community-owned development that has evolved out of the Melanesian way of working.

Facing the challenge
The Oxfam programme started in Bougainville in 1998 with the distribution of ‘school starter kits’. This initial involvement was an entry point into communities and enabled staff to work with locals in determining their development needs.

Assistance continued in the form of seed funding for 83 income-generating projects. While these initial projects were operating in a very difficult environment following the conflict, for many participants the projects had a positive impact as a way to build trust. The programme has brought together people who were previously on opposing sides of the conflict. Workshops have enabled people to sit down together for the first time in 10 years to share ideas and think out ‘tactics’ for reconciliation.

Project activities such as cooking, gardening, poultry farming and livestock rearing have encouraged them to work together. Reintroducing wood-carving in several communities has reconnected many young boys with their elders. All these activities have increased the goodwill, trust and cooperation within the project communities and given participants skills and self-confidence to take on new challenges without outside help.

Concrete benefits of the projects have included producing food and clothing and constructing buildings. This was particularly beneficial in the early stages of the programme because of shortages from many years of blockades.

A key aspect of reconciliation in Bougainville was to reintroduce the ex-combatant youth back into society. At one point, the young people in a community initially refused to take part in an ONZBP-funded project. Mainly ex-combatants, they disagreed with their community’s decision to have a cocoa dryer because they wanted the available funds to be spent on a chainsaw instead. They broke away from the community and would have nothing to do with the cocoa drying project. Despite this the community allowed them to share in the benefits of the successful project. Later they apologised and are now working more closely with their elders and the rest of the community.

Over the years, the local staff at ONZBP have developed a dynamic and well-respected organisation that is now a fully independent, non-governmental organisation (NGO), Osi Tanata.

Osi Tanata will continue to play a key role in the continuing reconstruction of Bougainville. This is reflected in the fact that they are increasingly being asked to provide institutional capacity building training to other NGOs, local leaders, community groups and educational institutions in Bougainville.

And Oxfam NZ’s commitment to Osi Tanata and the people of Bougainville will continue. Oxfam will support Osi Tanata in programme planning, advocacy and communication.

Bougainville faces a challenging future, but Osi Tanata can be confident that their work is having a positive impact in rebuilding communities.