Believe Global hosted a family fun day over the weekend (26th and 27th August) at Sir John Guise Stadium in Port Moresby. The events were a culmination of a full week of activities held during the entirety of the week, where the Believe Team ran various programs in schools, hospitals, villages, correctional facilities and markets. Believe Global Director, Neil Smith stated that his organization aims to bring change within the many spheres of influence. “Believe Global’s vision has always been to bring sustainable change and development through impacting spheres of leadership, education, business, health and the church.” “For the Believe Team, this is just part of their ongoing work in Papua New Guinea.” “These events are designed not just to be a positive experience in the moment, but to continue to reinforce the message that the future is bright for Papua New Guinea and that the people of this beautiful nation are her greatest asset.” Over 25,000 people participated in this year’s Believe Campaign through their many programs and events.

Theodist has presented a cheque of K50,000 to Buk Bilong Pikinini to help in sponsoring the organization’s drive to provide educational materials to children in Papua New Guinea and to emphasize the importance of corporate and non-profit partnerships towards nurturing community growth and development. This was done during Buk Bilong Pikinini’s launching of its new book series entitled, ‘When I Grow Up (I want to be a Graphic Designer).’ Ryan Pini a spokesperson for Theodist expressed his enthusiasm towards contributing to the development of youngsters’ minds. “We are deeply honoured and excited about this collaboration.” “It is our way of giving back to a community that has given us so much.” “We hope that through these reading books, young minds will be ignited with curiosity about the vast world of printing and design.” Buk Bilong Pikinini works with Theodist and other sponsors to establish Library Learning Centres in the country which provides free Early Childhood education to 5-year-old children. The program also includes a wide range of subjects taught to youngsters, library services and teacher training.

With their passion for providing books to help children in their early stages of development, Buk Bilong Pikinini this week launched a new book series, at Theodist titled, ‘When I Grow Up’. Each book illustrates the many possible careers children may pursue in the future. Founder and Chairperson of Buk Bilong Pikinini Anne-Sophie Hermann said that they wanted children to be aware of the different careers existing. “As the children learn, these books act as a guide and tell them what jobs will be available in the future.” Hermann also said that there were nineteen books published and there were another six that were currently in production. By next year there will be twenty-five professions available in the series.

Despite being a country rich in arts and culture, the theatre industry in the country is lacking significant improvement. Perceptions of the art as unimportant does play a factor in lack of funding and neglect of necessary resources needed for the industry to develop. UPNG Head of Division for Theatre Arts, Edith Monagi stated that theatre is important for community growth but is quite costly in terms of implementation. “Theatre productions often require significant financial resources for venue, rental production costs, and paying artists and staff.” “Not to mention, the availability of suitable theatre spaces and facilities can impact the quality and scale of productions.” “Having access to quality theatre education and training programs may also be limited, particularly in underserved communities.” “This can result in a lack of skilled theatre practitioners and a very small pool of talent for productions.” Monagi also added that in some regions, censorship can limit artistic expression and retaining an audiences’ interest and attention is challenging, especially in a time of numerous entertainment options.

Jubilee Catholic Secondary School and Carr Memorial Adventist School were the lucky schools out thirteen participating schools to receive brand new sports equipment from City Pharmacy Limited’s Stop N Shop as part of their Sports for Schools Promotion. This was done to endorse a sense of community between Stop N Shop and schools in Port Moresby. Deputy Principal of Jubilee Catholic Secondary School, Janet Sengi spoke positively of the experience. “It’s good that young people get to not only participate inside the classroom but also outside.” “We have to encourage our young people to take part in sports.” CPL Chief Executive Officer Navin Raju stated that CPL was eager for the opportunity to give back to schools. “This was to support our children. We’ve been to a few schools where we see children playing without proper sports facilities or equipment.” “This was an opportunity to give back to the community and community is part of our culture.” Mr Raju added, “We wanted schools to participate in what we call ‘Healthy Bodies-Healthy Minds’.” “Unhealthy diets are causing a lot of lifestyle diseases in communities.” “If you have people who focus on sports you will have healthy minds.”

Individuals who study theatre or other arts related fields are usually the subject of stereotypes or assumptions from outsiders and these misunderstandings often prevent people from fully appreciating and understanding the value of theatre. The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) Head of Department (HOD) for Theatre Arts, Edith Monagi stated that some of the misconceptions people have towards theatre and thespians include the assumption that, acting is the only job available. “Many people believe that theatre is all about acting but there are actually many other roles involved in theatre production, such as producers, directors, musicians, choreographers, and art directors.” Assumptions towards character and the thespian community in general is also common. “Some people believe that theatre majors have an easy major and are lazy but in reality, theatre majors work hard and have to balance many different skills, such as acting, directing, and technical production.” “Another misconception is that all theatre majors are divas and have huge egos, but in fact theatre majors, come from all walks of life and have different personalities and backgrounds. Theatre is not just for theatre people.” Monagi said that by debunking these misconceptions, we can promote a better understanding of theatre and thespians.

Theatre arts is beneficial to communities and was once a popular form of entertainment in the country. However, over time many misconceptions have resulted in the art becoming a form of satire. UPNG Theatre Arts, Head of Department, Edith Monagi told PNG HAUSBUNG in an interview that theatre plays a vital role in benefitting communities. “Theatre arts fosters community engagement, personal development, effective communication, and community enrichment.” “Participating in theatre can be a transformative and enriching experience.” “It offers personal growth, creative expression, and the opportunity to connect with others.” “Whether it’s acting, directing, designing, or being part of the production team, theatre provides a platform for individuals to explore their talents, develop valuable skills, and contribute to the vibrant world of performing arts.” Monagi further encouraged community members to attend local theatre productions, participate in theatre activities and support community theatre organizations. “Together we can create meaningful experiences, foster creativity, and build stronger connections among community members.”

What initially started as a project to publish personal works, eventually became one of the many publishing houses in the country. Shane Baiva Publishing House since its establishment has published books from other Papua New Guinean writers to date. Founder, Shane Baiva recognizes the need for more PNG authors. “Our focus is to encourage many PNG writers as much as possible.” “One of the challenges we face is writers trying to find funds to get their works published.” “Printing costs are expensive in many printing shops here in PNG so we try to beat the odds.” The publishing house was first established in early 2000, under the name Joy Publications. Its primary purpose was to print all Baiva’s own books but after helping another fellow Papua New Guinean author publish his book, the focus shifted to nation building. “We've also had a couple of writers who have contacted us from India, African Nations & Philippines seeking our assistance since we've started but we've had to decline these requests because our focus is currently on PNG alone.” “This may change in the future.”

Twitter has weathered months, if not years, of mismanagement as well as mass layoffs, frequent service disruptions and an exodus of top advertisers, but the launch of a rival app from Meta could prove to be the final straw. Threads surpassed 100 million users this weekend, less than a week after it launched, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Monday, marking a staggering feat for any social network and one that puts it on pace to rapidly pass Twitter’s audience size. Meanwhile, multiple internet traffic analysts reported noticeable declines in Twitter usage in just the past few days. The results underscore the risk Meta poses to Twitter’s business and raise questions about how, or if, Twitter can stem its losses. Twitter traffic had already been trending downward for months, according to data from the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare and the web analytics firm Similarweb. But the pace of decline appears to have accelerated in recent days, both companies said, likely reflecting strong interest in Threads and a mass migration from the platform owned by Elon Musk to the one run by Zuckerberg. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. On Sunday, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince shared a chart showing Twitter’s popularity relative to other websites it tracks. “Twitter traffic tanking,” Prince said as he posted The chart showed that in January, Twitter was ranked 32nd on the list; the next month, it had fallen to 34th. For much of the spring, Twitter fluctuated between 35th place and 37th. But the beginning of July showed a rapid falloff in popularity, as Twitter plunged to 40th place. (Cloudflare defines popularity as the “size of a population of users that look up a domain per unit of time.”) Similarweb told CNN Monday it has witnessed comparable trends in Twitter traffic. “In the first two full days that Threads was generally available, [last] Thursday and Friday, web traffic to twitter.com was down 5% compared with the same days of the previous week and down 11% compared with July 6 and 7, 2022,” said David Carr, a senior insights manager at Similarweb. “We’ve been reporting for a while that Twitter is down compared with last year – June traffic was down 4% – but Threads seems to be taking a bigger bite out of it.” Bolstering the traffic reports were the anecdotal experiences of some Threads users. Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, said Saturday he ran an “unscientific test” of how the same post he shared on Twitter, Threads and Mastodon, another rival, performed with his audience over a 23-hour period. The identical content Stamos created on each platform saw significantly more engagement on Threads than on Twitter as measured by likes and replies — despite having a fraction of his usual reach on the newer platform, he said. Stamos, who has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter but only a tenth of that number on Threads, added that strong Threads engagement with his posts describing the “research” also supported the original findings. The quality of the replies to his posts were also much higher on non-Twitter platforms, he observed. “From my perspective, Twitter is done as a platform for serious tech conversations,” Stamos said, who previously was the chief security officer at Facebook. A Twitter rival but not quite a Twitter replacement Fueling Threads’ rapid growth has been Meta’s use of Instagram as a springboard to sign up new users, along with what many Threads users have identified as a dissatisfaction with Twitter. Threads started out with a number of celebrity accounts prepopulating its platform but has since gained additional high-profile users including Kim Kardashian and Jeff Bezos. An account that had been banned from Twitter that tracks the movements of Musk’s private jet has also joined the new platform. More than 100 US lawmakers have signed up as well, Axios reported last week, though few world leaders appear to be on Threads at the moment. Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri have emphasized that Threads is about more than replacing Twitter and that the app seeks to tap audiences outside of Twitter’s traditional user base. That means Threads will not actively elevate news or political content, Mosseri said, describing those topics as “not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.” Over the weekend, Mosseri’s stance on news and politics triggered a debate over Threads’ approach to those topics. Some users praised it as a way to make the platform more accessible to average users, who may never have embraced Twitter before. Others argued that many of the topics Mosseri characterized as non-political, including music, fashion and entertainment, are their own source of news and can be inherently political. Even as Meta’s executives look to put some daylight between Threads and Twitter, the rapid rise of Threads only appears to have deepened Musk’s longtime feud with Zuckerberg. The app’s launch prompted threats of litigation as Twitter has accused Meta of trade secret theft, not to mention talk of a physical cage fight between Musk and Zuckerberg. On Sunday, Musk, who is known for erratic behavior and incendiary remarks, made it even more personal as he lobbed a sexual insult at Zuckerberg and proposed comparing the size of their respective genitalia. Zuckerberg has not directly responded to the insult. But after a Threads user pointed out that the new app was not featured in Twitter’s trending topics tab, Zuckerberg replied “Concerning” with a crying-laughter emoji. And he used the same emoji to reply to a post by the fast-food brand Wendy’s, which had suggested Zuckerberg should “go to space just to really make him mad lol.” Source: CNN News

World Chocolate Day - sometimes referred to as ‘International Chocolate Day’ or just, ‘Chocolate Day’ - is an annual celebration of all things, you guessed it, chocolate! World Chocolate Day 2023 takes place on the same date each year, on Friday, July 7th. World Chocolate Day is actually a relatively new event, first celebrated back in 2009. The date July 7th was specifically chosen, because it was on this day in the year 1550 that chocolate arrived in Europe. Here in PNG, some organizations also marked the occasion of World Chocolate Day 2023. Niunet PNG celebrated World Chocolate Day today here in NCD by distributing free chocolates to individuals and organizations. Members of Niunet drove around, giving out samples of locally produced Queen Emma chocolate. Head of Niunet Marketing Joseph Tutumang said that this is the first time this has been done and it also helps to give back to the people. “It was a hundred kina worth of Queen Emma chocolate.” “We specifically chose that because it’s produced in the country.” “When we do this, it helps the cocoa growers and small business and we want to give back to the country.”

St. John Ambulance (SJA) has plans of expanding and improving its services in Port Moresby and other parts of the country. SJA CEO Matthew Canon stated that expansion of its facilities will allow the organization to reach people who require access to ambulance services. “We’ve been operating ambulance stations in East New Britain, Morobe, Central and Chimbu.” “The plans at this stage are to establish stations in Gulf, Madang, East Sepik and also Western and Eastern Highlands.” Cannon further told PNG HAUSBUNG that the need for ambulance services is greater than the resources St. John currently possesses. “The demand for the service is higher than the funding that’s available to provide the service.” “We’re seeing so many calls that we don’t have enough ambulance personnel to send to those calls.” Cannon added though that despite the challenges, St. John is grateful for the support from the government and communities.

Newly established NGO Pikinini Pilai seeks to help children from marginalized communities through various physical activities and recently through a mobile library. Program Manager for Pikinini Pilai, Ms Vinzealhar Nen said the organization believes the needs of children and youth are very different. “We wanted Pikinini Pilai to focus solely on children between the ages of 6-13 years.” “We wanted to use this platform as a way to educate children on the importance of good health, good hygiene practices and good nutrition.” Pikinini Pilai incorporates many activities including yoga, kung fu, kickboxing, dance, and acrobatic acts to disseminate information. The NGO has also worked with other organizations such as RSPCA and Colgate to help run programs. “We have sessions every Mondays and Wednesdays.” “In each session we cater to about 70 or more children.” “On special occasions like Christmas and Easter the numbers can increase to more than 200.” Yet despite its success, Pikinini Pilai has its fair share of obstacles to face. Ms Nen stated that they’ve had to setbacks in terms of visibility and in trying to utilize manpower for their book drive. However, the organization remains optimistic as it seeks to serve marginalized communities. “Many of the children do not come from homes where they have access to toys and necessities.” “We hope to give them more than what we currently offer these kids.”