Feature
Issue No. 37 - October/November 2007
Ron stays in touch with PNG hinterland
Radio entrepreneur Ron Ehrke of Alpha Broadcast Services International, whom we met in the early days of ‘in-business’, is still heavily engaged in his benevolent work in Papua New Guinea.
“I’m establishing community radio (CR) stations in PNG for a national non-government organisation, Baptist Union of Papua New Guinea,” Ron says.
“The PNG Government has handed over responsibilities for many hospitals, schools and other community services to many of the church-based NGO’s including BUPNG.”
After finishing a radio station installation in 2003 Ron met BUPNG senior management who sought his help to link their project network.
“CR stations are an effective means for communicating to many people living in remote communities,” Ron says.
“From these discussions I developed a strategy plan to develop five CR stations in key areas BUPNG undertake their project activities. We decided to establish a pilot CR station at Tekin in the West Sepik Province, a very remote and isolated community of 15,000 people living in an area only accessible by small aircraft.
“Most of the people would never have been outside of the Tekin valley and would never have listened to radio broadcasts. Can you believe this in the 21st century?”
The project had no timeline because funding had to come from international aid donors. Ron has commissioned two of five.
“To get funding consideration, project proposals need ...
