The nation of Papua New Guinea will be shocked and saddened to hear the news that Yehiura Hriehwazi has died over the weekend.
Yehiura was a fair and ethical man whose news reports were always balanced and honest. He was a very special person and journalist for the two major newspapers.
He has a special place in the annals of Positive Living and AIDS Holistics. He put the message on the map in The National newspaper from about 2004 to 2007.
First we wrote stories on the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. These were all based on fact from people reported in the news of the world and others living in this country.
We wrote of an army officer who was infected with AIDS on a trip overseas and came back to be looked after and forgiven by his wife. That was based on a real person.
So too the story of a young HIV infected gay boy rejected by his father but came back into the family after a year alone in the town. That too was factual.
And there were many more. Complaints came from the National AIDS Council overseas advisors that the stories were false but our weekly input was defended by Yehiura.
In 2005, we started a column called Positive Living with HIV/AIDS that was carried by The National newspaper and continued for 2 ½ years with 150 columns.
People tell us even today that this column put the basic Positive Living message within the grasp of all care groups.
But the column was not to last. It seems that pressure was put on The National by people hostile to the Positive Living message and the column was stopped in 2006. It started again but was stopped in 2007.
While Yehiura was working in the newspaper industry, we have not placed any focus on his role as Patron of Positive Living.
Now we can shout to the skies that he was in so many ways a key person in setting up Positive Living in its place in the nation.
He was a family man who put the welfare of the family in its proper place. We read today that he was an elder brother and leader of his brothers and sisters. Yehi was a leader for us too.
My brother, you were too young to die at 49 years old. PNG people need to reassess their diet with more focus on fruit, vegetables and less fatty food. A heart attack is a sure sign of a fatty diet.
My brother, you were too young to die at 49 years old. PNG people need to reassess their diet with more focus on fruit, vegetables and less fatty food. A heart attack is a sure sign of a fatty diet.
I originally posted this on Facebook in response to a similar message sent in by a friend about losing Yehiura Hriehwazi. It is very sad indeed. Yehi had much more in him to give to PNG and the media industry - not to mention his own people. He was in the group that was writing hard news while some of us were still in school struggling to write the perfect composition. I count it a privilege to have him coming over from PC to work with the paper that I am with for the last few months...Surprising to me, he was not that loud in person as he seemed to be in print when making the top executives and ministers sit up and take notice of what they were saying or doing with public or shareholders' funds. It is sad indeed to have Yehi leave in such a manner and time.
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