Special screening of "Mr Pip" to benefit Bougainville NGOs

 ‘Mr Pip’ is the screen adaptation of Lloyd Jones’ novel of the same name. Set in Bougainville during the crisis, the film follows the eccentric Mr Watts as he takes on the role of teacher for children of the village in which he lives, using Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ as his only text.

The film was shot in Bougainville in 2011 with Hugh Laurie playing Mr Watts and other roles taken by local people.

The producers and distributor of the film in Australia (Paramount Pictures Australia) have generously agreed to allow the New South Wales Parliament – twinned with the Autonomous Region of Bougainville’s House of Representatives - to screen ‘Mr Pip’ as a special event to raise funds for community projects supported by the Bougainville Women’s Federation, an umbrella organisation for women’s groups in Bougainville with the mission of building productive communities and representing the women of Bougainville. The funds will be used for shipping of resources donated by NSW people and organisations for use in the Hako Resource Centre, village kindergartens, and other projects on Buka Island, at the northern tip of Bougainville.

‘Mr Pip’ will be screened at the Paramount Pictures private cinema at 208 Clarence Street, Sydney, on Monday 2 December at 7.00pm (doors open at 6.30pm). Ticket price is $50 (concession $20). There are limited seats, so tickets must be booked in advance. Contact us to book, or for more information.
See the official trailer or find out more about the book here.

Volunteers coming and going

In September 2013, Nina Boydell and her husband John arrived in Buka for a two-year placement with Australian Volunteers International. Nina is working with the Bougainville Women's Federation, based in Buka town, but has already made a few trips, including a trip north to Hako for some sewing and cooking workshops.

And coming in the other direction at about the same time, Marilyn Havini and her husband Moses were evacuated to Sydney for medical treatment. Marilyn has been working with the BWF and Hako Women's Collective since their foundation, and for the last few years has been on a volunteer placement with Australian Volunteers International. She is making a good recovery from a badly broken wrist, and hopes to go back to Bougainville soon.

Thank you, Addison Road Community Centre!

The long story of shipping materials for the Hako Women's Collective Resource Centre has taken another couple of steps forward recently, when the Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville kindly agreed to let us park the shipping container on their land while we pack it. We will be sharing the container (and the cost) with a few others who also need to get some goods over there. We are planning for early 2014.
Thanks very much to Roseanna and the ARCC.

Resources for HWC projects

Thanks to the generosity of many people, we have collected some wonderful materials and resources for use in projects associated with HWC and the Bougainville Women's Forum. These include:

Books, games and teaching resources - kindly donated by JamisonTown Public School library, Stanmore Public School library, and Allen & Unwin. These form the nucleus of a library, and will be used in the Resource Centre and in the Village kindergartens. The village kindergartens are organised and run by women in the villages, to provide early learning for children and give them some preparation for school, which for many children does not begin until they are 7 or 8 years old. Most of the women running these kindergartens are not trained teachers, and the resources available to them are very limited, so these materials will be extremely valuable.

Office equipment and furniture. HWC now has some office space, but needs office supplies and equipment of all kinds, including stationery, ring binders, filing cabinets, printers, ink and paper. We have collected some of these goods but could do with more.

We also have fabric and clothes, a collection of mechanic and hand tools, and paint for the new Resource Centre.

Getting these things shipped to Buka has proved a difficult task, and has taken much longer than we had hoped. For those of us living in Sydney it has been a real lesson in the difficulties faced by people living in remote places.
If you would like to help with the cost, please contact us.