DIRECTOR'S OPENING REMARKS

 

Bro. Martin Tnines, SVD

Executive Director, Melanesian Institute

Melanesian Institute: Empowering Grassroots Communities for Sustainable Development

The Melanesian Institute has been serving the people of Papua New Guinea and beyond since 1969 in the areas of social research, publication and cultural Orientation courses for church Institutions, missionary societies, and interested individuals and organizations (e.g. Local and overseas NGOs, researchers, foreign dignitaries and development workers, government bodies, etc.). These ‘core services’ have been greatly contributing to nation building, missionary work and gutpela sindaun(fullness of life) for local communities in Papua New Guinea. However, these services are still limited to expatriate communities and few privileged Papua New Guineans who can read and write. MI has not reached most of Papua New Guineans who are living in remote communities and have a low level of literacy. So, how can we reach out to these remote communities? How can we make these communities become active participants of the services of the Melanesian Institute? How can the services of the Melanesian Institute bring about social transformation for these local communities? How can we sustain the services at grassroots community level? How can grassroots communities become catalysts of genuine change and drivers of their development right in their own backyards? The Melanesian Institute team thinks that is within its capacity and institutional mandate to deliver a fourth service that supplements and consolidates the other three main services and that can address these collectively discerned questions and challenges. The newly emerging service of the Institute is “Participatory Processes for Grassroots Communities”.