By Guria Kapi

Copyright postcourier

What started as a shelter for the homeless, feeding and housing is now taking a new twist in helping young girls living with HIV.

Veronica Charlie is the founder of Women of Hope PNG, located outside of Port Moresby has been in existence since 2010.

Veronica is a GBV survivor but also experienced poverty first hand while growing up in the suburb of Hohola collecting and selling bottles to make ends meet.

As a young teenager, meals were hard to come by on a daily basis which forced her into running away from school to collect bottles with her friends so that they could have a decent meal making from K5 to K15 a day from the sales.

Sometimes when the collection of bottles did not go so well, she survived off the Regal Bakery leftovers thrown away at the Hohola dump to settle her rumbling stomach screaming for food; When it was mango season, all the kids in the area worked together to have a decent share before heading to their respective homes.

Although she was living at Hohola in her teenage years, she was not living with her biological parents, but that of her extended family. Through fear of traditional and customary reasons, she was forced to live with other family members at Hohola.

As life was tough, Veronica did not make it beyond Grade 4 and concentrated on selling bottles for a living until she was old enough to get a job.

She started off as a Sales Rep for Hebamo Press before moving onto Moresby stationery in sales and also with Business Systems. She then ventured out on her own earning commission as a sales rep middleman selling stationery.

While doing well on her own, she reflected on her struggles as a young girl on the streets and saw that there were many more young girls on the streets struggling to survive. With her traumatic violent marriage experience now behind her, she made a bold decision to do something about the life struggles, young Papua New Guinean women were facing.

She founded Women of Hope PNG in 2010 but headed down to Sydney Australia for 6 months to attain a Diploma in Pastoral Training for Care Giving at the Allan Walker College, Sydney.

Since her return, she has been consistently taking on homeless young girls and giving them the care that they deserve with a shelter to take care of their needs, 3 meals a day, regular clinic appointments to make sure they are in good health.

“In the last 12 years, we have had more than 50 young girls come stay with us and because most are HIV positive patients, we make sure to give them all the love and care that they need to help them live healthy and be able to take care of themselves”, said an emotional Vernoica.

“We are a self-sponsored organisation and are doing it out of our Melanesia Love to care for our young girls especially those living with HIV”, she added.

“So far, we have had to bury 5 of our young girls who lost the battle with HIV and will continue to run our centre to cater for more”.

Women of Hope founder Veronica Charlie has opened up her home to build shelters to cater for the young girls and currently has 6 rooms which cater 2 persons per room and has 2 septic toilets and 2 bathrooms for the girls. She currently is housing about 15 young girls mostly of central heritage plus a young girl from Goroka amongst them.

Most of the girls have been kicked out onto the streets or have been neglected by their families and have found their way to Veronica’s home through known contacts or have met along the way.

One truly inspiring story of survival are 2 sisters from Pari Village who have come out of child prostitution. But that’s another story to tell.

Veronica Charlie is a regular visitor to the 4 Square Clinic down at Gabutu and also the St. Theresa Clinic at Hohola taking these young girls for their regular check-ups for HIV. She gets calls from time-to-time to check out new in-coming patients that need assistance and is always welcomed with open arms.

“Without assistance from groups and individuals, it would be difficult for me to keep this home open and operational. We hold fundraiser events organised by my children and myself which helps us to raise the much-needed funds to ensure these young girls have access to 3 meals a day and all the basic necessities a young woman needs. As this is all done voluntarily, it is a burden that requires financial assistance to keep going on”, said Veronica.

The NCDC family through Gender Equity and the Women’s Empowerment Division has been a great help throughout our journey as safe home for our young girls. Miss Danielle Winfrey, the Manager for this division at NCDC has been a great help and look forward to doing more with them in the future.

“My future dreams for the home is to have 10 extra rooms built along with a Counselling room for one-on-one private sessions, a recreation area and a 15-Seater bus which is our priority at the moment for the safe home. Getting the girls to go in for their clinic days is a struggle”, said Veronica.

We are currently spending K1,000 to K2,500 a week to keep the kitchen busy and also the upkeep of the home plus logistics for the hospital reviews.

We are hoping to have donors jump on board to support our efforts to keep the home operating as we are seeing great improvement in the health of our girls and hope to see them make their dreams a reality.

Women of hope is also doing door-to-door visits in Moresby South-East and the Motu-Koita villages raising awareness and checking on those who need assistance.

Do contact us direct on mobile number 7610 2723 for more information or if you are in need of our assistance.