Integrated

Club Is A Success

l an AAP-Reuter Correspondent in Port Moresby simple, 20 word vow is the en e to membership of Papua-New ea’s only multi-racial social a non-political, non-sectarian i isation founded two years ago [ "experiment in integration” .

E vow is: “I promise, no matter vhat circumstances may arise, I will work for the unity and jpment of all races.” own as the Contact Club, its >ers come from all sections of Moresby’s polygot community, Hess of race, colour and creed. ;re are doctors, teachers, Ad tration officers, churchmen, i employees, clerks, plumbers, aters, shop assistants and many I. Fittingly, their motto is tur all men”. borrowed club rooms, members :k, white and brown—come to ■ regularly to mix with and un nd one another, to share each s point of view in frank and ibited discussion on the prob and complexities of their grow )untry. ijects such as land reform, !, discrimination, national unity, lyment, workers’ problems, ling and federation with West Guinea are dealt with in often 1, but never spiteful, debate, er they gather in groups over a f tea and biscuits—liquor is not id because native members, by are denied it—to talk about intimate things such as the 1, fishing and other sports.

Mission Lead atact was formed in 1959 by Australian missionary, the Rev.

Parkin, a 42-year-old family with four children from the tide suburb of Kilkenny, hen I came here from Australia 58 there wasn’t a single organ n that was open to all members e community,” he explained in lodest timber and fibre home at to, an outer Port Moresby sub atives were only then being ac d into mixed sporting teams but ie field they were still outcasts, hings have improved consider smee then. The general bulk If white population here does ; nun the native like it used to.

Many whites now realise they should —and must—get along socially with the native.”

Contact now has 60 members of which a little more than 65 per cent, are native and mixed race. The club’s five man executive includes two natives—Pastor R. Moa, of the Lon don Missionary Society, a vice-presi dent, and Lepani Watson, an auxiliary division officer of the Ad ministration.

Other prominent native members of the club include Reuben Taureka, a member of the Papua-New Guinea Workers’ Association, Albert Kiki, president of the Kerema Welfare Association, a leading native social organisation, and John Guise, the elected native representative for Eastern Papua in the Legislative Council. Taureka is also an MLC.

To join the club an applicant must be proposed by two members and his membership must be approved by the executive. To date no prospective member has been turned away.

“We could very easily swamp the club with Europeans,” Mr Parkin said. “There is no shortage of pros pective white members. But we try to keep the majority with the native members, not for any sinister reasons but to give the coloured members encouragment to take part in discussions.

No Confidence “It has been proved time and again here that many natives do not have the confidence to speak their mind if they have a white-dominated audience.”

According to its founder, Contact has proved an undoubted success.

“It was started purely as an experi ment in integration, and I believe it has worked wonderfully well. But we are still only scratching the surface,” he said.

“We meet only once every four weeks and this gives us little time to really do much. What we want now is to build our own club rooms, and we have started raising funds for this. The Administration, which gives the club plenty of moral support, has said it will help us if it can, but any donations we can get from the public are very welcome.”

Mr. Parkin said Contact wanted to build a community centre with club and recreation rooms, tennis and basketball clubs and a swimming pool. “We want to give the people somewhere where we can meet on a common footing, somewhere where there are no discrimination rules to bar membership to anyone,” he said.

“There is nothing at present in the whole of the Territory that fills this urgent need.”