THE SHARED VISION

By Peter Babul Jr

1.0 FLASHBACK
From all the Hotels and Motels I know, Kokoda Trail Hotel is one place that resonates well with my soul. A neat little spot of Paradise tucked into the base of the Sogeri Plateau with their accommodations lined up along the side of a nice little hill. We slept in one of their Cottages. And it is mid-year. So as usual, it gets really cold up at Sogeri like there is air-conditioning outside the building. Thankfully the cottage had solar hot water. So I woke up, took a nice hot shower, made myself a nice hot cup of coffee, walked out and stood at the veranda, sipping my coffee, listening to the beautiful sounds of birds from the surrounding forests and waiting for the sun to rise. It just felt so good to wake up to such surroundings. And then I told myself, “This is the way I want to live and wake up every day.”

2.0 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS ARTICLE
In the previous article, I introduced the concept of the Ward Development Authority. Then over the days that followed after the release of that article, I received a good amount of feedback from my readers. On one hand, there were those who were excited about the concept and quickly asked me to email a format to them. Then on the other hand, there were those who challenged this concept saying that it is impractical and that it was unrecognized by the Government because the Government only recognizes the Ward Development Committee. Therefore, based on their feedback, I have seen the need to write a Ward Development Authority “Profile”. This Article is written specifically to clear any misunderstanding. For those who want to write their Profile, simply copy this structure & use it.

3.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Your Executive Summary is like an introduction letter from the Ward Councillor to anyone reading the WDA Profile. In the executive summary, what you are doing is that you are briefly introducing the reader to your Ward and telling them what this Profile contains and what the main Services and Products people can find in the Ward. Specifically, the Profile showcases the Wards Renewable Resource Sector, Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Tourism. This profile is designed in a way that it will become a Facebook Page and Website later. It also serves as a Guide and tells you where to go next and who you can talk to in order to find what you want or get more information about the Ward. So before we dive in the Work of the WDA, we must first learn about the History of our Shared Vision.

4.0 HISTORY & BACKGROUND OF THE SHARED VISION
If you ask some of the older ones. The ones who have lived and worked with the early missionaries. They will tell you how they lived. It is in our history. A hundred years ago they built lifestyles and living standards all over the rural areas of PNG that looked like tiny Resorts. Even though they lived in villages, some had solar hot water, lighting, and some had milk, eggs, vegetables and meat. The Missionaries came and showed us how to live. You can take a nice hot shower, enjoy hearty nutritious meals and enjoy good living standards even in the rural areas. It was all possible. The Missionaries showed us how. They were very resourceful. But we only took their bibles and not their resourcefulness. In fact, I bet the first Resort was the Garden of Eden. A place you’d want to go every holiday. A place we’d want to live in every day. Well should we all be building & owning our own Garden of Eden Resorts?

4.1. SUMMARY DESCRIPTION OF THE WDA
For starters, the Ward Development Authority (WDA) is not a replacement of the Ward Development Committee (WDC). It is not there to override the powers of the WDC. The WDA is there to complement and support the WDC. Let me explain. The WDC belongs to the Government. On the other hand, the WDA belongs to the CLANS. The Resource Owners. The WDC is made up of Community Leaders. The WDA is made up of Clan Leaders. The reason we need to have an authority in place at the Ward level is because there is no proper regulation and management of Resources at the Ward Level. The Agriculture industry is not firmly established, overfishing is happening everywhere, Forests are cut with no tangible benefits and the Tourism potential of the Ward remains untapped. Clan Leaders need to sit down and plan all this. And if you effectively develop and manage our natural resources, we will improve our lifestyle and living standards. But first our Clans need to be educated to do that. That, is the purpose of the WDA.

5.0 ABOUT US
My name is Peter Babul. I am a Volunteer Writer. I am voluntarily drafting the Profile for you as part of my Social Responsibility. And in addition to me, there are other volunteers as well. They are not writers but they have their own strengths. We are a Team of Technical Volunteers. We have been doing our own volunteering work for quite some time and have progressed to a certain degree and now I am just putting this in writing just for the record. I am someone who has lived in my village from 2011 to 2018 and I have seen how all our Natural Resources have been poorly managed and how and why many of our efforts to establish an industry has failed. On that note, our Team of Volunteers have taken an innovative approach & now we are starting to see tangible results. I will share that later.

5.1. VISION: All people should own a Resort
Recall the flashback I had at the start of this Article. The beautiful surroundings I woke up to at the Kokoda Trail Hotel. Now imagine if you owned a Cottage like that in your village. Imagine this in the remote little corner you have in your rural area. Imagine you and your family in the village with a good lifestyle & living standards. Imagine if you lived in your own Garden of Eden. That would be great right? Now imagine if you were educated and guided to build that for your own. Imagine if this Garden of Eden of yours was done up as a Resort. You live in a Cottage, and adding to that you have 5 bungalows to the side for guests or friends, a Resource Centre for your children, Conference Facilities for business, a Balcony for networking events, a bar and a BBQ area. The Clans have enough resources for that right?

5.2. MISSION: Empowering members of our Ward through Writing.
The Shared Vision, was the very place Adam & Eve were placed in, and we were all born into when we were placed on this beautiful planet. But somewhere along the line Adam and Eve lost track on what they were set out to do and how they were supposed to work and live. They lost their vision and so did we. And along with that we started to destroy the planet and all its natural resources instead of developing and managing all those resources and turning this planet into a Paradise with Resorts. So the main purpose of the Ward Development Authority is to put us back on track by educating us to effectively develop and manage our natural resources and turn our homes and eventually our Wards into a Paradise Resort. And when friends travel out from the cities, they can come and stay at our resort during holidays and vacations.

5.3. OBJECTIVES: For the Ward Development Authority Team.
5.3.1. Write Articles for our Clan Associations
5.3.2. Write Articles for our Youth Associations
5.3.3. Write Articles for our Women Associations
5.3.4. Write weekly progress reports and newsletters
5.3.5. Create a Facebook Page & Publish weekly reports
5.3.6. Promote our Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry & Tourism Products
5.3.7. Share our Development Journey on Facebook
5.3.8. Buy a Smartphone and Start this Today

6.0 ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE: Align the Clans to develop the Ward.
6.1. BOD: Made up of all Clan Leaders in the Ward
6.2. CHAIRPERSON: The Ward Councillor
6.3. CEO: The Ward Recorder
6.4. MANAGEMENT: The Officer Bearers
6.5. ADMIN MANAGER: Secretary
6.6. TECHNICAL MANAGER: Treasurer
6.7. EXTERNAL VOLUNTEERS: Our Team
6.8. ADMIN & TECHNICAL VOLUNTEERS: Everyone in the Ward
7.0 SERVICES – Build your CV and Work Experience through Volunteering.
Everyone child born in the community can gain valuable Work Experience & a Reference written by the CEO and signed by all Clan Leaders in the Ward to build their CV. This will go for the services they perform in the Ward. Frankly, I can say that everyone in the Ward have provided services to some extent during the Community Work day or in their own way, but none of them have had their CVs built to acknowledge all of that. For that, many youths are not acknowledged and empowered despite all the work they have volunteered to do over the years and all the work experience they have gained. Well with the WDA, this is going to change. The Clan Leaders will create service opportunities and take note of everyone’s efforts. Volunteering is the Primary Strength of the Ward Development Authority.

7.1. ADMINISTRATIVE VOLUNTEERS: Assist everyone in putting everything into writing.
To achieve our Shared Vision, everything has to be put into writing. For example, how else would God get humans to share our Shared Vision had humans not put all His words into writing and called it the Bible? Writing is our way forward. Likewise, the Key function of the volunteers in assisting the Ward Development Authority under the Admin Department is to put every information in the Ward that is useful, informative and educational into writing then use it to educate the Clans. Things like the Clan History, Traditions, and Culture must also be put in writing as it is useful for the Tourism Industry. Agricultural Articles need to be published to educate the Clans. Fisheries Articles need to be published as well as Forestry. Writing of Articles is the key. That is the easiest, fastest & cheapest way to start.

7.2. TECHNICAL VOLUNTEERS: Share your knowledge and experience with everyone.
The Building of the Resort, Bungalows, Resource Centres, Conference Facilities, Power supply, Water Supply, BBQ Areas, Picnic Tables, Huts, the Balcony, Bar, Farm Projects, Forestry Products, Tourism Product, all that plus much more would need Standard Plans and Designs. And with that, there are enough technical people in our Wards who can write these plans and designs. The Admin Team simply needs to work with these Technical Volunteers and put all of these in to writing. On the other hand, the technical volunteer can voluntarily coordinate projects around the ward as long as the Clans resource them. Simple ideas are shared all over the internet and on YouTube so all that the technical volunteers need to do is to take the easiest design & make it happen in the Ward with the Clans.

8.0 PRODUCTS: Place all our Products on our Facebook Page.
If you look closely at our Shared Vision to build and own a Resort, you will find that building and owning a resort combines all four of our Renewable Resources; Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Tourism. The Forestry Team will build our Resorts, bungalows, and all other important facilities in the Ward. The agriculture and fisheries resources will feed ourselves, all our friends and visitors including clients. And the Tourism Team will train us how to take care of ourselves, our Resorts, our Friends and our Visitors and Clients. So for all of that to happen, we need to develop our Products. And in order to do so, we need to educate our people through writing. We need to educate our Clan Leaders. We need to train our Clans. So writing articles will be very important for our Training and also our Website.

8.1. AGRICULTURE: What Agricultural Products does our Ward have?
While the Volunteer Admin Teams are writing education Articles to Educate the Clans on what they can do with their resources and publishing it on our Facebook Page, the Volunteer Technical Team should be taking high quality photos of each of the Agriculture Projects they are assisting in order for it to be shared on the WDA Facebook Page. We can do anything and everything under the sun but if we do not share it on our Facebook Page then we will miss out on a lot of Business Opportunities. So the subtitles here is actually the name of a Photo Album in our Facebook Page. Agriculture Volunteers in our Ward would be submitting content here to both educate our Clans and Market our Products. By building a Facebook Page now, we will have enough content to build our WDA Website later.

8.2. FISHERIES: What fisheries products does our Ward have?
The same thing done by the Agriculture Team will be done here as well. Our Admin Team must assist our Fisheries Volunteers to write content that will educate our Clans on how they will develop and manage their Fisheries Resources. On the other hand, these Technical Volunteers must take high quality photos of the projects in the Clan they are assisting, in order to share their development journey and to showcase and market our Fisheries Products. All of these achieve two things: It inspires others and attracts our potential customers. And by showcasing our products it also makes it easy for our Ward Councillor to market our products & talk to Markets. It also keeps our Clans in a progressive state in that they need to share their progress each week on the Facebook Page.

8.3. FORESTRY: What forest products does our Ward have?
The Technical Team supporting the Forestry Industry of the Ward will function just like all other Teams in terms of their Purpose for the Ward and for the Ward’s Facebook Page. To write content that is educational for the clans and to get high quality images to share on the Page in order to share the journey and to showcase our products. And with the right collaboration from the Clan, there are so many products that can come out from the Forestry sector such as the Cottages, Bungalows, Picnic Tables, Decks, Huts, and much more. On the other hand, there are lots of free designs on the internet that the Technical Team can use and cost and then we can see how many things we need in order to build these products. Apart from that, there are also local forest products like carvings & cane chairs.

8.4. TOURISM: What Tourism Products does our Ward have?
The Tourism Division is the last end of our development journey that we should be marketing. For we can’t be showcasing our tourism products without having the capacity to take care of our visitors when they intend to visit. But it’s also okay to do a bit of promotion at the start in order to share the development journey. Technical Volunteers assisting this Division are mainly assisting Clans to develop & package their Tourism Products. The WDA Page will promote Tourism sites around our Ward. Does your ward have bird watching sites? Waterfalls? Historical sites? Sacred Sites? Rivers? Fishing spots? Long Treks? Short Treks? Picnic Areas? Camping areas? Site seeing locations? Well how much would it cost to visit any of these places in your ward? The WDA will educate Clans on Product Development.

9.0 WAY FORWARD: So how do we start all of these?
9.1. Go back to the previous Article #21 and study Steps 1 to 10.
9.2. Create your WDA Profile Facebook Page
9.3. Copy the Subheadings in this Articles as Photo Albums in your Facebook Page
9.4. Create one folder to Share Agricultural Articles and Showcase Agricultural Products
9.5. Create one folder to Share Fisheries Articles and Showcase Fisheries Products
9.6. Create one folder to Share Forestry Articles and Showcase Forestry Products
9.7. Create one folder to Share Tourism Articles and Showcase Tourism Products
9.8. Write an Executive Summary that will be pinned as the top post on your Page

10. CONCLUSION
Just by looking at this structure of the Profile and how it is designed to educate our people as well as showcasing their products, you can see that the function of the Ward Development Authority seems very simple and practical. This is because we have focused only on the Products & Product Development aspects of the Ward. There are other areas where we will be needing input from the Clan Leaders such as the Plans, Policies & Projects which we have left out for now to discuss them on a later date. The important thing is to start. We can build these things. We can own these things. We shouldn’t just focus on doing projects for the market, sometimes we have to do it for our own lives. So for that, we need to embrace the Shared Vision of owning our own Garden of Eden resort. And if you are employed right now and one fine day you will retire and go back to the village, this should be your retirement package.