“Bilum Books” Training Teachers

Professional training to improve the quality of teaching in remote and isolated schools.

Father & son, Ray and Eamon from Australia, joined Grace to lead professional training for early grade teachers from remote communities.

Ryan picked them and all their bags (“Bilums”) of books from Vanimo, a town on the north coast near the Indonesian border, and dropped them in Nuku, also on the north coast, where they conducted training for teachers who walked up to a week to attend the course. Ryan returned to Nuku and picked them up again, took some of their colleagues to Tekin and brought them to Telefomin to do the course again for more teachers. A week later he took everyone to Wewak where the overseas teachers then got commercial flights to Australia.

Ray shared how grateful the teachers were to get the training and resources which the “Bilum Books” provide. Teachers in remote communities have extremely limited resources, often lacking basics such as pencils and paper. To get bags (“Bilums”) full of resources for their small schools are a rare and valuable blessing.

“Bilum Books” is a PNG initiative, started by Glenda Giles, an Australian Missionary who has started and supported schools in remote communities in PNG for the past 50 years. Without MAF planes to transport the teachers and their books, this initiative wouldn’t be possible.

Click on the link, top, right, to see a reel of the team explaining about their work and their flights with MAF.