Women in the Western province who are engaged in rice project, will benefit greatly from a Papua New Guinea (PNG)- Australia Partnership Incentive Fund grant of K38million given to the Ok Tedi Development Foundation (OTDF) for the rice livelihood project.
This rice projects is for supporting women’s groups and families to trial rice production for consumption and commercial purpose, was rolled out recently in Western Province.
PNG-Australia Partnership also supports inclusiveness in community project and amongst the 2, 000 participants from Kavinaga in the Middle Fly District, is a woman living with disability, Diana Sendea, actively participating in her community’s rice project.
Diana’s leg was amputated when she was a child, but she has never let her disability stop her from going about her daily life.
“I am really happy with the project here and I feel empowered to help and give back what little I can to my community through this project,” Diana said.
“Rice planting is new here and I am very happy with the knowledge shared on cultivating the different varieties of rice. It is good to see some families going into small scale rice planting as well, with the knowledge they have,” she said.
Diana also mentioned that the project has also helped with cash flow, especially for the women who are now able to cater for themselves and their family’s needs.
Diana assists with weeding in the lowlands, cleans around project area and helps sharpen tools.
The Australian High Commission also highlighted that the project aims to scale up production and venture into processing and marketing at a larger scale.
Through the project, communities are given trainings on improved food production techniques and family business management, received support for building sustainable agribusinesses, and they were also provided farming tools.
Twenty project participants including 10 women, were trained on the rice farming cycle to ensure long term sustainability of project activities.
Through the project, Incentive Fund has opened spaces for equal participation and engagement of people with disability like Diana in all activities, so that they can benefit from improved livelihood and economic opportunities as well.
This applies across all project activities and infrastructure lifecycle, thus this includes ensuring construction projects and training courses are accessible and inclusive for people with disability.
This is the same in all Incentive Fund Phase IV projects under the PNG-Australia Partnership, whereby people with disability are identified as priority participants in all projects and all partner organizations are encouraged to create spaces and include them fully in all activities and benefits, in a meaningful and sustainable way.