This is the grade 10 Personal Development course for Papua New Guinea students.
Who am I? mentor? Role model? Peer
educator?
We can all be
role models in families. Fathers and mothers can be role models to sons and
daughters and members of the extended families on how to be kind, caring,
responsible, supporting, honest, not cheating, not violent and committed to the
safety, health and education of family. Older children in a family can be role models
to their young brothers and sisters.
Role models can
be leaders in the family, school, church and sporting groups. They are
committed to the group, honest, supporting all members of the group, good
communicators and decision makers, honest, good speakers, hard-working, strong
values, self discipline and helping
members to succeed.
Sporting players
can be role models for the younger players, teaching sports skills, having
values of fair play and values of living, commitment to success of the team, no
violence or dirty play in the game, commitment to training for all members and
an honest and loving family life.
Who are in
the nuclear and extended families ?
Nuclear family
members are parents and children. Extended families are
parents, children,grand parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. In Papua New
Guinea, the positive extended family gives support to all members.
Husbands give
support to the family of the wife. Wives give support to the family of the
husband. All members share in bride price. In traditional families there are
strict rules about sex between family members except husband and wife. People are called tambus.
What is a
good husband?
He is kind and
loving to his wife. He works with her by gender equality and works to lift the
esteem of the wife and children. He discusses family problems with his wife and
accepts her opinion. He will discuss with her if he disagrees. He has
commitment of a leader of wife and children and can be a leader of the extended
family. He is not violent and teaches values to family members.
He teaches sons
and daughters to be loyal to the family and give support. He teaches sons how
to be a good husband, father and role
model. If he has skills in business or fixing cars, he becomes the mentor of
his sons and nephews. They learn his skills that they will pass on to their
sons.
He is honest in
the community and committed to helping the community to grow. He is friendly to
neighbours and always ready to help them. He protects his family from danger
and makes sure that his sons and daughters go to school. He supports his
daughters with gender equality by sending them to school like his sons.
He makes sure
that sons and daughters do not go out at night if they are young. He and his
wife make sure the young people in the family always tell them where they are
going and when they are coming back. He does not want his children to smoke
marijuana, take drugs or drink home brew. He does not do these things himself.
He protects his daughters from sexual abuse.
He brings home
his pay each fortnight and makes sure his wife has money for food, clothes,
rent, medicine for the family, school fees and school lunches. He does not
waste his pay on beer and other women.
What is a
good wife?
A good wife
loves her husband and children. She is loyal to them and to members of the
extended family. Her husband’s parents and family have accepted her as a good
woman and she regards them as her family too. She works hard in looking after
house and family. She cooks food, washes clothes and looks after the children.
She may work in
a job in the town and brings home fortnight pay that she spends on the family.
She and her husband share their fortnight pay. The older children in the family
help with house work and looking after the small children.
The wife has
values that come from church teachings and she shares these with her husband
and children. She wants her family to be loyal, honest and hard working. She
wants them to love God and follow the 10 Commandments. The family prays
together and each family member says Grace at meals. They go to church.
She shows her
own values of love to all family. She loves her neighbours as the Bible tells.
She teaches the children not to bear false witness and rest on the Sabbath. She
is faithful to her husband and gives her husband loving sex.
She is a role
model for all family members and members of the church and community. She is a
good cook and teaches her daughters the skills of cooking as their mentor.
Who need to
be cared for in the family?
The family
consists of parents, children and members of the extended family. Aged parents
may have spent their lives looking after their children. Now it is their time
to be looked after. They may come to live with their son or daughter. They will
help with looking after the children, particularly if the husband and wife go
to work.
The aged parents
may be sick and need special care. Others in the family may have disabilities
and be unable to work or look after themselves. They may need medical help and
hospital care. There may be a person in the family with HIV/AIDS.
They must not
be discriminated against and rejected from the family. They may need support
and be taken to the AIDS care clinic for medication. LGBT children need to be loved and supported.
Both the husband
and wife will work together to build a strong family with strong love and
caring, strong values of what is good and what is bad, loyalty to one another
and love of God.
What are the
needs of family members?
Families need
love, security, cooperation, love, respect, dignity, strong values, self esteem
for all family members, gender equality between girls and boys, husband and
wife, strong support from extended family, food, shelter, clothing, money for
family needs such as medicine, food, school fees, uniforms, books, peace,
shared work, shared money, faith in God.
What are
important values?
These include
respect for other people, truthfulness, love of God, hard work, healthy living,
helping one another, honouring father and mother and caring for family as in
the Bible, helping other people in need, not abusing our bodies with rubbish
food, alcohol, betel nut, home brew and marijuana, respect for life of other
people and respect for women and girls.
Why is strong nutrition an important value?
The Bible tells
us that our bodies are temples of God. We must treat our bodies with respect by
eating healthy food and drinking clean water. In many parts of the world, this
is not possible as rivers are polluted and food is contaminated with poisons.
It is important
that we eat fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts as these provide the protein,
vitamins and anti- oxidents that keep our body strong. There are foods that are
poisonous, damage our bodies and give us cancers. There are poisons in
cigarettes, alcohol, home brew and marijuana.
It is important
that we do not eat too much fatty food as this blocks up our hearts and can
give us heart attacks, diabetes two and strokes.
Many people in
PNG eat much fatty pig meat and many die in early age of 48-53. We see the
photos of many young people who die and appear in newspaper funeral notices.
They smoke cigarettes and do no exercise.
We learn from
the old people in villages who live until 80-90 years old. Yet their sons in
the towns die at the age of 48.
Young people die
early because of their unhealthy lifestyles. They eat rubbish fatty food, do
not eat fruit and vegetables, do no exercise, smoke cigarettes and get lung
cancer, chew buai and get cancer of the mouth.
Old people live
long in the villages because they walk everywhere up and down mountains, drink
clean water from the river, do not eat much fatty meat, live in peace, work
hard and eat mainly fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts as we are advised in
Genesis of the Old Testament.
People who die
early had suffered heart attacks and strokes from fatty meat, diabetes two from
too much sugar in soft drinks and beer, heart problems from too much salt. We
need salt and sugar but not too much.
The Buddhist
value is based on the Middle Way. They do not do too much or too little but
follow a middle way.
Why is
exercise important?
Exercise gives
strength to our bodies. We strengthen our muscles and bones. We strengthen our
heart and blood vessels and help the blood to pass through all arteries and capillaries.
Our cells are supplied with nutrients, salts and water that is pumped through
our blood system by exercise.
Exercise burns
our nutrients. Sugars are burned off and do not give us diabetes 2 by blocking
our liver. Exercise burns our fats that gather in our heart and liver. We must
not eat too much fat but a small diet with exercise will not harm us.
Too much fat and
not enough exercise will make us fat or obese. So many people in PNG cities and
in Australia are fat. We take off weight by eating less fatty food, more fruit
and vegetables and regular exercise.
Why is sport
important?
Sport gives us
the necessary exercise to stop becoming fat. If we play football at school
every day and do not eat too much food and drink too much soft drink , we lose
weight.
Sport gives us
skills that make us strong and able to move. All muscles become strong and
allow us to climb mountains, swim oceans and rivers, run for long distances.
If we are
healthy, our heart and brain are healthy. We sleep well at night.We are able to
work long hours with clear brains and able to make strong decisions. We are not
tired.
Sport is
important as it makes us a team person. We can play with other people and
achieve goals as a team. We learn the rules of team play. We do not play dirty
and are not violent on the playing field.
We play to win
but are willing to shake the hand of the other team if they win. That is
sportsmanship. We often read in the media of a PNG team involved in a fight
with the other team when they lost. This is not sportsmanship.
Sport trains
some men or women to be leaders. They lead the rest of the team with a
commitment to win and play fair, to come to training each week, to master
skills as shown by the coach, to accept criticism of the coach and to strive to
improve their personal best or PB.
An effective
coach is a leader with the skills and experience to guide young players to
become star players. This man or woman will be the judge of the achievement of
the team and performance of the individual players.
The coach is
like a father or mother to younger players and guides them in their lives off
the field. The coach may be mentor to a young player who is drinking too much
alcohol and having trouble with his wife. Another player may have just lost his
job and needs someone to talk to. A good coach will know when a player is
unhappy.
Women in
sport
We live in a
world of gender equality. If men play sport, women should play too. They need
the life giving that sport brings us with exercise and healthy lifestyle. There
are champion women in the world in all codes of sport who are role models for
other women motivated to play sport too.
Many women in
Papua New Guinea play no sport and as they grow older, become fat or obese.
They are not healthy and face the danger of death through heart attacks,
strokes or diabetes 2. Successful women in sport do not smoke, drink alcohol or
chew buai. They limit the amount of soft drink they take every week.
The problem is
that the sponsors in sport prefer to focus on men rather than women. So the big
sponsorship in team sport often goes to the men.
Importance of
the media
The media in
Papua New Guinea shows photos on their sports pages of both men’s and women’s
teams. The media is important in promoting sport as TV sports programs and
sports pages will attract other sponsors and lift the money that goes to sport.
The football
scene in Papua New Guinea lives on teams sponsored by companies. The companies
have taken over the team and links the sale of their product to the success of
their team.
That is why team
managers work hard to make sure that their team players conduct themselves in
sportsmanlike ways. If a football player is charged with violence by the police
and charged in Court, that player will most likely be sacked by the company.
The sporting
teams are expected to be role models for the young fans in the community and
their families. A football team in UK once appeared in Court for rape of two
young women. The judge blasted their stupidity as community role models.
Disabled
players in sport
Disabled people
can suffer a life that is limited by the inability to walk or move about. They
may have been in an accident or born brain damaged. They spend their lives in a
wheel chair or a bed and may do not exercise. Their life span will be cut
short.
Modern society
accepts that disabled people need to be loved and cared for in families. Those
who are able to move around are encouraged to be involved in sport.
The standard of
the performance does not match that of able bodied sports people. But we accept
that they are doing their personal best. They are proud of their achievement
and the community should be proud too.
There is now an
Olympics for disabled people. The sponsorship is not as great. The disabled and
women in sport suffer the same problem with sponsorship.
What are the
values of other religions?
The Christian
values are based on Grace. We live in God’s grace. We are all sinners and cannot
bargain with God to find salvation. We live by faith but that does mean that we
have to live by works too. We tell God that we are sinners and beg his Grace
for salvation. We cannot buy salvation but only beg for Grace.
The Buddhist
values are based on (1) the Middle Way and (2) the 8 Fold Plan. In the
Plan, we follow the right beliefs, attitudes, feelings, humility, responses, actions,
occupation and lifestyle. If we strive for perfection and truth in everything
we do, we will live a holy life.
The Moslem
faith places total emphasis on Allah through the prophet Mohammed. This
faith believes in one God and the existence of Satan. It is a very strict
religion that imposes Sharia law in Moslem nations that can have people
arrested for immoral conduct and punished at times with death.
Hindu faith believes in more than one God. They believe in reincarnation by
which the soul of a dead person moves on to enter another body human or animal.
The society is divided into casts and the lowest are the untouchables that are
pushed away from society only able to do the dirtiest work.