Drama Program

Since her employment in 2003, Jean has conducted a village leader conservation education program using drama in each village. The participants used drama techniques to learn about Tenkile and the rainforest. The one day workshop illustrated the importance of protecting rainforest in Papua New Guinea and how the leaders can protect their valuable resources. Locals have performed plays on Tenkile, logging and traditional stories about Tenkile. Songs have been written and performed by locals and these songs now feature in the radio program. This has been a powerful and rewarding education program. Locals have found the education program empowering and useful in better understanding the conservation issues faced in Papua New Guinea.

Nutrition Course

In Sandaun Province the children have the lowest birth weights and worst malnutrition rates for the whole of Papua New Guinea . This is primarily due to the poor diet and various food taboos for women during pregnancy and breast feeding. To assist the people in understanding how to better provide good nutrition for their families, Jean has conducted nutrition talks and cooking lessons for the local women. This program focused on the three basic food groups in PNG (energy, protein and protective).

Energy - foods are carbohydrates and starchy foods such as Sweet Potato, Taro, Yam, banana and sago.

Protein - Meat, beans, nuts and seeds.

Protective - Vitamins and minerals found in most sweet fruits and other vegetables.

During the nutrition lessons there was an emphasis on the alternative protein sources available in the garden such as peanuts and beans. TCA has provided each village with peanuts, beans and other seeds to grow and cultivate.

The nutrition program also covered information relating to food taboos and traditional practices that may be seen as unhealthy by western standards and the women were informed of this. Following the theory section of the program the women were shown various recipes using basic ingredients grown locally for salads, curry, bubble and squeak and sago pops (like a prawn cracker using sago!).

Overall these education programs have been successful due to the lack of courses available to women free of charge. TCA conducted a very simple and practical nutrition course to accommodate the literacy problems among women in the villages.

Puppet Show

Jim and Jean have developed and conducted a puppet show in each of the moratorium villages. The puppets are hand held puppets and toys that come alive with the assistance of Jims animal voices . These animal characters are from the TCA radio program. Local people were introduced to the animal characters Timmy Tenkile, Clemen Cockie and Rick the Rat during early 2006. This puppet show will continue when Jim travels to each village for other TCA work.