The reoccurring theme in bridging various social gaps remains to be sensitisation for young people.

For Papua New Guinea, issues ranging from gender relations to health have worsened over the years, making them a norm for the people.

While the PNG government buckles down for the APEC summit, polio has emerged, tuberculosis persists due to multidrug resistance, and violations of human rights are ever-present as in cases like that of the Paga Hill villagers struggle.

Papus New Guinea’s progress may seem obscure. However, this should not overshadow the mobilisation of young Papua New Guineans at the community level.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), around 60 percent of young people under 25 account for PNG’s population 8.5 million.

The disproportionate percentage of young Papua New Guineans calls for more engaging avenues that will translate into overall development at community levels.

Executive director of UNFPA Dr Natalia Kanem says the investment in young people’s capabilities, as well as creating opportunities for them, will build peaceful, cohesive and resilient societies.

Cultural settings
Equally important, these opportunities require sustainability so that they are also contextually relevant to PNG’s diverse cultural settings.

As the PNG government focuses on “unlocking” its economic potential, the mobilisation of youth largely rests with non-governmental and faith-based organisations such as The Voice Inc., Equal Playing Field, Youth Against Corruption Association – to name a few.

Last month, PNG’s Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato told the United Nations General Assembly that the “government recognises the importance of putting in place the building blocks needed to enable inclusive and participatory development.”

He added that it was their priority to create employment opportunities that would match the needs of Papua New Guinean youth.

Concrete action in this area, however, remain bleak, particularly in light of 500 procured APEC-vehicles, outbreak of preventable diseases and drug shortages in hospitals around PNG.

As such, the work of various organisations to equip youth in shaping civic affairs is paramount.

Education at the grassroots level, along with platforms to communicate the acquired information, provide a bridging factor for youth to spread “sensitisation” during a time when governance is questionable.

Changing mindsets
This can be seen in movements such as the newly homegrown project SKILLZ PNG.

Last month, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) PNG in partnership with adolescent health organisation Grassroots Soccer, launched SKILLZ.

The project uses soccer as a vehicle for at-risk youth “to overcome their greatest health challenges… and be agents for change in their communities”.

Grassroots Soccer Master trainer Nicole Banister says the project gives participants the platform to express themselves.

“It was incredible for me to see how some of the shyer participants really blossom throughout the training. They really found their voice in terms of facilitating, working with their peers, praise openly and build personal connections across organisations, different sexes, different ages and cultures – all of which are important to build a community in PNG.”

For a country like PNG, SKILLZ offers a continuum of care for youth to combat prevalent issues such as gender-based violence.

In addition, it provides a conducive environment for youth to develop a better understanding of PNG’s health system and their own health needs.

Training of coaches
Over a period of two weeks, 20 youth participants from varying backgrounds underwent SKILLZ PNG’s “training of coaches” workshop.

To an outsider, this workshop may seem just any other ordinary event.

It is, in fact, a necessary movement for young Papua New Guineans especially when high levels of violence can provide a sense of “disillusionment”,  as stated by The Voice Inc.’s chairperson, Serena Sumanop.

For Joshua Ganeki, a 27-year-old participant, SKILLZ PNG gave him a chance to do something purposeful.

Having graduated from Port Moresby Business College in 2014, he found it difficult to secure employment and thus resorted to doing odd jobs, and then eventually volunteering with YWCA.

His passion for helping young people led him to SKILLZ PNG and prompted a self-reflection on gender expectations.

Rights, responsibilities
“One thing I learnt is our society has gender expectations, especially for women and that is wrong. We need to break these norms and become equal team players and partners in life.

“SKILLZ PNG is trying to make us more aware of our rights, responsibilities as men and women.”

For others such as 21-year-old Kevlyne Yosia, the training strengthened her confidence in being an agent of change.

“Back in year 11, my class was having a discussion on politics and a male classmate told me that my place was in the kitchen so I have no place talking about such things. It made me feel bad because I knew other women are told the same thing.

“But it also made me stand my ground that I have a right to voice my opinion, and so do other women,” said Yosia.

She added that the training enabled herself and others to realise that support and appreciation for genders is essential in fostering healthy relationships.

Development goals
While projects such as SKILLZ PNG are vital, so are their alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

For YWCA PNG, its work with Grassroots Soccer has empowered more youth to be SDG champions in a political climate that is self-serving.

SKILLZ PNG’s coverage of goals such as “good health and wellbeing”, “gender equality” and “partnership for goals” means that more young people will feel empowered and equipped to participate in civic engagements.

Although this project has seen only one group graduate onto becoming coaches in their communities, Grassroots Soccer master trainer Alex Bozwa said: “I’m incredibly optimistic for the work that these people will be doing with other young people.”

SKILLZ PNG is currently limited to the capital of Port Moresby but it is a positive step towards leveraging Grassroots Soccer’s large success in the African continent, so that youth on a national level can also participate.

In the meantime, hope remains in young people like Kevlyne Yosia.

“I want to see a better PNG, where I can feel safe as a woman.”

Pauline Mago-King is a masters student based at Auckland University of Technology and is researching gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea. She compiled this report for the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course.

Twitter: @iamatalau04

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Fake news” combined with a lack of critical media judgment by many in the millennial generation is a major challenge to democracies across the world, says a leading Indian communication academic.

Speaking at the 26th annual conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) conference with the theme “Disturbing Asian millennials: Some creative responses”, Professor Bharthur Sanjay, pro vice-chancellor of the University of Hyderabad, said the vulnerability of some states in the face of the social media crisis had led to a default response of shutting down the internet in “volatile contexts”.

In the case of India and some states, efforts to formally regulate fake news with legislated responses were withdrawn.

Papua New Guinea is an example of an Asia-Pacific country where a government minister has threatened to shut down Facebook for a month to research so-called “fake accounts”.

Professor Sanjay did not mention Papua New Guinea but he said the implications were wide-ranging for Asia-Pacific countries. Papua New Guinea is due to host APEC in November.

The WhatsApp social media platform – widely used throughout Asia – was cited as a leading outlet for disseminating fake news.

“Fake news is a bit of a misleading term, as fake news can mean many things – a mistake, intentional misleading, twisting a news story, or fabricating a complete lie,” Dr Sanjay said.

Fake accounts damage
In the opening address at the host Manipal University (MAHE) in Karnataka, South India, Dr Sanjay said that while news media organisations and credible journalists had been found to publish misleading stories and mistakes, the most damage was done by people with fake social media profiles, polarising websites, and social media sites seeking to intentionally spread fake news to win elections or promote hatred.

Formal education contexts featured debates about the public sector, commercialisation and privatisation while a “default faith” was placed on new media that could virtually bring “handheld” education to the millennials.

This was a field that the public and private education sector intended to reach out to through online education and learning tools and options, said Dr Sanjay.

He said the euphoric underpinnings of the digital era in the Asia-Pacific and its subregions of ASEAN countries, South Asia and the Southeast Asia had parallels in the colonial and postcolonial periods with a technocentric dimension.

Dr Sanjay said online Indian language context was expected to reach about 60 percent.

Digital destinations across genres would capitalise on the profile that was non-English.

Information was considered an enabling and empowering input.

The speed with which it travels through multiple platforms has raised concerns about legacy media content through adaptation or user-generated content, Dr Sanjay said.

Higher trust
Apart from ethics, the legacy media enjoyed higher trust based on its screening and verification processes.

User-generated content reflected a paradigm shift that in theory allowed higher participation.

The millennials profile was not uniform across countries and the kind of content had come into sharper focus.

A critique of the content was an issue for both academic discourse and legal and regulatory frameworks, Dr Sanjay said.

Extension models of higher education seemed to suggest that they could be tapped to bring skilled youth into the workplace.

AMIC chairman Professor Crispin Maslog of the Philippines said the millennials were the largest such generation in history – “and we ‘centennials need to understand them’.”

“There are some 1.8 billion out of the 7 billion global population – and they love smart phones. Of that 1.8 billion, 600 million are Asian.”

Redefining millennial life
Millennials, sometimes known as the “echo boomers”, are generally regarded as the 16 to 34-year-olds – the “digital natives’ who are not just consumers of media, but produce their own media content.

Globalisation, migration and technology are some of the major factors redefining the millennials’ way of life.

Most of the 200 academics from 15 countries at the conference presented papers on millennials education research and innovative case stories.

Themes explored included “Branding millennials – defining identity”, “A passion for technology – living in a social media world”, “News and current affairs as consumption (or creation) practices”, “evolving gender representation in the new mediascape”, and “Research and data management – today’s cutting edge competencies”.

One of the conference highlights was a “Free/Dem” panel dialogue and presentation about communication for and by young people in practice.

Deepika and Summi, programme associates of India’s Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT), gave inspiring addresses in Hindi about how their movement had worked across the continent to give girls in poverty-hit communities the opportunity to work with computers and learn technical skills.

“When I saw people using computers, I wanted to be able to do the same,” said Summi, a 13-year-old from a very poor urban neigbourhood where girls never got an opportunity.

“Now I am able to help other girls to do the same.”

Creative communication and culture were also major parts of the programme, including an episode of Jataaya Moksha performed by MAHE’s creative arts school Yakshagana Kendra.

Launching a report on “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development“, New Delhi-based national UNESCO programme officer Anirban Sarma, said that while new media had expanded freedoms and communication beyond the media, there had also been “increasing incursions into proivacy and an expansion of mass and arbitrary surveillance”.

“The rise of new forms of political populism as well as what have been seen as authoritarian policies are important developments,” says the report based on a survey of 131 countries.

“Citing a range of reasons, including national security, governments are increasingly monitoring and also requiring the take down of information online, in many cases not only relating to hate speech and content seen to encourage violent extremism, but also what has been seen as legitimate political positioning.”

Asia communication awards

Filipino Charlie Agatep – a public relations guru in Asia – made a passionate video plea for more courageous, rigorous and accurate journalism as an antidote for “fake news”.

He was also critical of the “digital acrobats” who swept Rodrigo Duterte into the presidency in 2016 and who still manipulates and distorts public opinion in the Philippines.

Agatep founded the PR agency Agatep Associates in 1988 and transformed it into Grupo Agatep Inc., the largest marketing and digital (social media) communication agency in the Philippines.

He was one of two AMIC Asia Communication Award in Transformative Leadership recipients for 2018.

The other was Manila-based Father Franz-Josef Eilers, an inspirational Catholic church and social justice communicator of the Society of Divine Word (SVD).

The conference was hosted by MAHE’s School of Communication whose director Professor Padma Rani, thanked ZEE television, UNESCO and the many sponsors and her “fabulous” faculty team for the successful outcome.

Next year’s conference will be hosted by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.

• The Pacific Media Centre’s Professor David Robie addressed the opening plenary panel on “Millennials’ concept of democracy: freedom of expression for all v. freedom of expression for themselves” and delivered a paper on the expanding notions of “Pacific way” journalism.

A brief clip from a community journalism promotion video produced for the Manipal University School of Communication and screened at the university’s “experimental theatre”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz