April 28, 2010

Five students from Divine Word University’s Faculty of Arts will travel to Brisbane, Australia this weekend for the UNESCO World Press Freedom Global Conference.

The students are Stanley Mark, Serah Aupong, Seta Menu, Natasha Tamanabae and Claire Kouro.

The dean of the faculty, Dr Linda Crowl said that she was very pleased to see the students traveling to Brisbane for this prestigious event.

“The students will benefit greatly from this experience, and they will make many friends from other cultures around the world,” said Dr Crowl.

“When they return to the campus, I am sure they will have many good stories to tell,” added Dr Crowl.

In a very busy program for the conference, Serah Aupong said that she will be making a small presentation on some of the challenges faced by the media in PNG.

Stanley Mark, Seta Menu and Natasha Tamanabae have been invited to sing their recently composed song about media freedom, according to one of the event organizers, Professor Martin Hadlow.

“We look forward to welcoming your group from PNG and we can assure them of a worthwhile conference,” Professor Hadlow wrote in a recent email.
Professor Hadlow is no stranger to the media industry in PNG and the people here.

“I was once the Assistant Station Manager of Radio Kerema, then I became Station Manager at Radio Morobe and Radio Bougainville, and later I was based at NBC HQ in Port Moresby,” he wrote.

UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and every year at this time UNESCO highlights Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which proclaims these freedoms.