It has taken nearly three years to finally see some progress.
 We have been provided with a Global Grant from The Rotary Foundation and from Rotary Clubs, Rotary Districts and private donors from many parts of Australia and from Singapore. The value of this grant is over USD $85,000, and this has now been deposited in the Global Grant bank account of the Rotary Club of Manly. We have commenced ordering from suppliers in Port Moresby and Brisbane.       
Lucy and Craig will go to Lese Oalai via the LooCube centre in Brisbane (to fine-tune their construction knowledge) to supervise the building of the toilets.
Meanwhile the conversion of a container (which had been forwarded from RARE in Geelong, full of books and other educational paraphernalia) to the first ever library in the school is under way. This was funded by a Direct Aid Program grant from the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby. This conversion has battled with monsoon rains and violence in Port Moresby limiting access to consumables, but we hope will be finished by the end of this month.
Next we need to get a water well built in the school grounds, a solar system over the library, full development of the WASH program to provide reticulated water to not only the school but to the town and adjacent towns, a STARLINK service established for communication, the Teacher-in a-Box  project underway, and ultimately get the 14 classrooms that are needed for the junior school built.
We are applying for Royce and Jean Abbey Scholarships for the headmistress Mary Pao and for our IT guru, William so that they can have three months CPD in Australia. There have been significant advances in Structural Literacy programs in Australia which should be included in the curriculum.
The Gulf Province has offered to build one double classroom and to build teacher accommodation, but we are not too sure of the timeline. However, we are on our way. We thank you all for your support, and promise to keep working at this until we can say that the children of Lese Oalai can all get a decent education. We hope that this program will be seen as a template that can be used for other villages in Papua New Guinea, and with a cascade effect, produce significant improvement in  our nearest neighbour.
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