People
pp. 41-45 · Read in the full issue
The Loto Taumafai National Society for the Disabled was formed at a public meeting in Apia late last year.
The society seeks to co ordinate efforts on behalf of the various handicapped people and their associations in Samoa, without interfering with the rights and resources of existing organisations.
The executive of the new society consists of Miss Fiasill Keil (president), the Rev Joseph Pusateri (vice-president), Bill Tennv (secretary), and Denis Cronin (treasurer). Miss Keil herself is confined to a wheelchair.
Susuga Pilia’e Pelenato of Leulumoega represented the Pulenuu (Mayors’) Association, and was asked by the organisers to take the new society’s thanks to the Pulenuus at their next meeting. The society will rely considerably on the Pulenuus to bring to its notice the handi capped in the villages who are either ‘hidden away’, or are not aware of the assistance avail able.
Dr Keith Ridings, director of health, in his keynote address spoke on the rehabilitation pro cess for the handicapped of all kinds. He urged the non disabled section of the com munity to be aware of both the problems and the potential of the handicapped.
Rotary and Rotaract mem bers present at the inaugural meeting contributed their ser vices. The Apia branch is initialing a national society, as part of preparations for the United Nations’ 1981 Inter national Year of the Disabled.
Current Rotary President Dr Tuala Misi chaired the meet
ing.
William Sharpe-Dunn.
Kadavu. He took over the post from the Rev Daniel Mastapha, whose term of office had ex pired. Emosi Vuakatagane is the new vice-president of the church. Mr Vuakatagane is a farmer and a member of the Fiji Public Service Commission.
Frederick Robert (Bob) Bugg, just retired as health inspector of Wanganui (New Zealand) City Council, is a man who has had to put up with a host of poor jokes about his name.
In a press interview he re called episodes from a period he evidently regards as one of the highlights of his life: 1953-59, when he was chief health in spector of Western Samoa. ‘I expected a big health depart ment there,’ he recalled. ‘But when I got there from New Zealand, I found a medical officer of health, myself and one file, dated 1930.’
For six years he worked to serve the health needs of about 120 000 people, his territory taking in Tokelau. It took him weeks to walk around the islands, with a kava ceremony and dancing sessions in every village at night.
He set about training 25 Samoan health inspectors and was caught up in some major campaigns dealing with trop ical diseases. ‘We cut the infant mortality rate, eliminated two fairly serious tropical diseases and got good water supplies in,’ said Mr Bugg. ‘There was a lot of rule of-thumb there.’
While trapped at Tokelau by a hurricane, he successfully carried out an appendicectomy.
He also developed skill in delivering babies.
While in Samoa he served as meat inspector, veterinarian and pathologist. During a strike, he was hospital anaes thetist and was also engaged as hospital architect.
In 1955 he married a Samoan, Rosa (no other name provided in the NZ report). In October that year the Joyita made her last voyage.
Mr Bugg was supposed to have gone along when the 70tonne converted yacht sailed from Apia for Tokelau. But he didn’t like the look of the Joyita and Rosa was expecting a child.
She had a feeling that some-
The new president of the Methodist Church in Fiji is the Rev Inoke Nabulivou. Mr Nabulivou is from the island of
thing was going to happen and forbade him to go on board.
The skipper, ‘Dusty’ Miller, was a good friend and often stayed with Mr Bugg. ‘He took off one Saturday morning, loaded to the gunwales,’ Mr Bugg recalls. ‘He had everything he could get on her.’
Six weeks later the water logged Joyita was found on her side, far to the west of her correct course, and about 220 km from Vanua Levu, Fiji.
There was no sign of the 25 people who sailed in her. Much of the gear had been stripped, including radios and compasses. It was assumed everyone had taken to rafts, but to this day the mystery is unsolved.
Mr Bugg’s final comment was: ‘The money was gone, but my rat poison was found in the bottom of the boat and some papers I had printed.’
Tamaiti Willie Star, Nauru’s consul-general in Melbourne and ambassador to the USA, has become acting chief sec retary to the Nauruan public service.
The top position in the ser vice became vacant when the last incumbent, Ratu George Mataika from Fiji, left and took up the position of consul for Nauru in his home country.
Mr Star is a long-serving and experienced Nauruan public servant. He was posted to Melbourne shortly after inde pendence in 1968. He was then Nauruan welfare officer, but later became Nauru represen tative until he became Nauru’s first consul-general in Mel
bourne. He has also been direc tor of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation board of directors, and the chairman of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust Board.
It is understood that Theodore Moses has been sent to Melbourne as consul-general.
Mr Moses has been general manager of the Nauru Co operative Service as well as consul for Nauru in Japan.
Douglas Walkden Brown has been appointed Fiji’s consul general in Sydney, succeeding Raman Nair who has returned to Fiji to take up another appointment.
Australian-born Mr Brown is a former member of the Fiji Parliament and has served as minister for agriculture in the Fiji Government.
Trained at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, New South Wales, he was principal of Navuso Agricultural Col lege, Fiji, from 1947 to 1960.
He was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, 1961.
Two staff members of the Papua New Guinea University of Technology in Lae have been awarded European Economic
Philip Vahia, a photographer with the Solomon Islands News Drum, recently returned home to Honiara after a two-month training course provided by the Australian government. With John Crowther, Australian In formation Service chief pho tographer, he is shown here in Canberra discussing a knotty camera problem. - AIS picture.
Community scholarships to overseas studies.
James Pokris of Warambei Village, Manus Province, a senior tutor, is going for one year to the University College of London to graduate as MSc in social anthropology.
Lucas Dosung of Unsesu Vil lage, Morobe Province, is a tutor in librarianship, and is taking a 12-months diploma course in this field at the College of Aberystwyth in Wales, UK.
Their scholarships bring to 36 the number of Papua New Guineans who have gone to Europe since the end of 1978 for training on EEC grants provided under the Multi annual Training Programme.
Total cost of these scholarships is estimated at K 290 000.
Peter Burwash International (PBI) has announced the ap pointment of Kirk Anderson as Pacific regional director. He was formerly the tennis director for Princeville at Hanalei on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. In his new job he will oversee all PBI programmes in Hawaii, Tahiti and Fiji.
PBI is the world’s major
organisation of travelling tennis coaches. Its travelling tennis show has been taken to all 50 states of the USA and 87 countries.
Pan Am has transferred the office of its South Pacific pass-
enger marketing head, Paul Casey, from Sydney to Mel bourne. He will also assume responsibilities as director- Victoria and Tasmania. The current director, Bill Rolph, is to retire after 37 years with Pan Am in the Pacific area.
Announcing the move. Pan Am Regional Managing Direc tor John McGhee said that Sydney has been the airline’s South Pacific HQ since 1947, and will remain so. But the Pan
Am commitment to Melbourne was strong.
Mr McGhee said the com mitment would be strengthened by the transfer of Mr Casey’s office and the introduction of a fifth Boeing 747 service be tween Melbourne and the United States. ‘Southern Australia is a de veloping market for travel to the US, while the major tour operators, banks and business houses are headquartered in Melbourne,’ he said.
The new British High Com missioner to Tonga. Bernard Coleman, arrived in the king dom in November.
Mr Coleman entered the Foreign Office Consular Ser vice in 1950, and has held appointments in Peru, the US, Uruguay, Venezuela, Canada, Spain and Ireland.
Hawaiian Airlines chairman of the board John H. Magoon Jr, has announced the appointment of Peter A. Dudgeon as presi dent of the board.
Mr Magoon will continue to have overall responsibility for the general direction of the airline while Mr Dudgeon will be chief operating officer re sponsible for the airline’s day
to-day operations.
Mr Dudgeon joined the com pany in 1969 as part of the team that prepared it for the install ation of a computerised passen ger reservations system. Before joining Hawaiian he was a computer systems analyst with
Churchill Falls (Labrador) Cor poration in Quebec, Canada.
Mrs lole Tagoilelagi is the volunteer co-ordinator of the newly formed Pacific Pre- School Association. Founding of the association followed the holding of the first Pacific Pre- School Workshop in Suva, Fiji.
The workshop was sponsored by the South Pacific Regional Office of the YWCA. Thirty people from 15 countries took part.
Mrs Tagoilelagi is in charge of a kindergarten at the Pacific Theological College, Suva, car ing for children of women taking part in a women’s pro gramme run by the PTC.
A former acting governor of Ponape, Bermin F. Weilbacher, has been appointed chief of the agriculture division in the Fed erated States of Micronesia’s Department of Resources and Development.
Mr Weilbacher, 39. has held
Children from Rurutu at a trav elling coaching session organ ised by Peter Burwash Inter national. Kirk Anderson has been appointed Pacific regional director for PBI. - Maka'ala Yates picture.
Paul Casey
Eight medical students from Papua New Guinea have been in Australia gaining clinical ex perience at hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne under a training programme sponsored by the Australian Government. Two of the students, shown here, are Blasius Tonar (left) from Kundiawa and Kuna Nemba from Chauve, senior students from the University of PNG.
They were photographed at Prince of Wales Children’s Hos pital, Sydney, while Professor John Beveridge, director of clinical services, examines tiny patient Rene Donovan. Rene’s mother, Lyn Donovan, watches. - AIS picture.
a number of posts with the Trust Territory government.
Among them were acting governor of Ponape from December 1977 to April 1979; deputy district administrator of Ponape from 1974 to 1977; and chief of the agriculture division at Trust Territory headquarters on Saipan from 1972 to 1974.
He holds a degree in agricul tural technology from the Uni versity of Hawaii.
Boxers from Vanuatu did well at their first overseas inter national boxing tournament in Solomon Islands late last year.
Jeffry Nauras, Tanna, brought back first prize in the flyweight division. Sam Kalsong, Emau, took out second prize in the same division, and Naui Namak, Tanna, won second prize in the welter weight contest. ‘Aoba: Lini Taken Captive’ was the sensational frontpage head line in a November issue of the Port-Vila weekly, Voice of Vanuatu.
But the story inside reassured those who might have felt that things had taken a new turn for the worse in the troubled archi pelago.
It said: The road was blocked. ‘Prime Minister Father Walter Lini’s transport stopped in front of the blockade. ‘Warriors leapt out from the dense bush which flanked the road. ‘They surrounded the truck.
Armed with clubs and bows and arrows they tied up the prime minister, his wife and others in the official party. ‘The bound captives were marched off to appear before the Chief. ‘They were to be eaten. ‘But compassion took hold of the warrior leader. He asked for the captives to be spared. ‘They looked to be quite good men, he said. ‘And so the prime minister and his fellow captives were given food, drink and presents by the people welcoming them to the opening of Aoba’s Com munity Centre. ‘lt was a fine custom wel come, indeed. And it was fol lowed by a kava ceremony.’
A representative of the communist-led French trade union federation CGT visited New Caledonia and French Polynesia in October.
Gilbert Julis told the Papeete newspaper Les Nouvelles that he did not intend to set up a local branch of the CGT in the territory, but he believed that
the CGT could help local union bodies to develop their econ omic and social policies.
Dr Lindsey Verrier, one of the founders of the ruling Alliance political party in Fiji, has re turned to active involvement in the party’s affairs after an eight-year rift with Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, prime minister and parliamentary leader of the party. Tm going back into the thick of things, to give whatever service I can’ he told the Alliance annual convention in Suva. Welcoming him back Ratu Mara said ‘He was my mentor who picked me out of medical school and sent me to higher education. It was politics that caused a little difference between us and I’m glad it’s politics that has brought us together again’.
President Jimmy Carter was represented at Fiji’s 10th anni versary celebrations by Benjamin Hooks, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest and largest civil rights organis ation in the.USA.
Accompanying Mr Hooks and his wife were William Borders Jr, who is president of the National Bar Association of the US, and Ronald Nathan, a Washington attorney.
Also representing the US at the celebrations were US Am bassador to Fiji William Bodde Jr, and Mrs Bodde.
Akosita Na\usolo, a seventh form student of Natobua High School, Fiji, was presented by Princess Anne with a prize of SF7S, and a copy of the autobi ography of the late Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, for winning the first prize in a national essay competition on the theme of Fiji’s independence. Occasion was the 10th anniversary of Fiji’s independence on October 10.
But now Akosita, 19, says she is ready to return the prizes because the essay was not her own work. When she wrote it, she didn’t know it had to be.
Akosita said she made up the essay by lifting extracts from a government publication of 1970 when Fiji became independent, and from messages of Prime' Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and then Leader of the Opposition Siddiq Koya. She also lifted extracts from a 1979 edition of Fiji Today, a govern ment publication.
The question arose when The Fiji Times received a com plaint from a parent that the essay was not an original work.
Our best information on how the sad story ended is that Akosita posted her prize back to the organisers.
Backed by the Papua New Guinea flag, Lindy Kelly, vice president of the Papua New Guinea Social Club in Sydney, presents a prize to Gary Beecroft at a function held by the club. The social club is one of a number of organisations in Australia which are maintaining strong links between the two countries, involving the PNG community in Australia and Australians with PNG interests. - Terry Seddon picture.
Polynesian artist Aloi Pilioko, who lives in Vanuatu, recently visited Moscow at the invitation of the USSR Academy of Art to display his own works and other art from Polynesia (PIM Dec p29). He is shown here at Moscow Friendship House dis cussing his work with Soviet art critic Dr Semyon Tyulayev. - Novosti picture.