Papua New Guinea
“Time is running, we can’t wait for time to come and catch up with us,” says Jenny Wal Gonapa, owner of PNG Highlands Adventures, a committed entrepreneur and community leader using her business and volunteer work to empower women and drive change in Papua New Guinea.
After completing a Diploma in Business Management at TAFE Queensland in 1988 through Australia Awards PNG, she returned with new skills in management, budgeting and accounting—and a lasting impression of Australia’s work ethic: “What I learned was time management. In Australia people work very, very hard.”
This mindset inspired Jenny to launch her tourism business in 2009. Her exposure to tourism events and destinations in Australia, including the TAFE Tourism and Hospitality Faculty and the Melbourne Cup, sparked an idea. With experience in the mining sector and NGOs, she established PNG Highlands Adventures, developing international markets and showcasing PNG’s natural and cultural beauty.
But Jenny didn’t just learn how to establish and run a successful business. She also learned how to apply her business skills to assist her community: “I learned from my studies that volunteer work in communities is far more interesting than a normal career and paid job,” she reflects.
Since 2002, Jenny has led community-based development projects, supported by funding from New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Most of her projects have been based in Chimbu, where Jenny is from, but she is also branching out to other areas where she takes tourists.
“The scholarship really helped us to learn and to teach others. So far, I have had 13 projects approved for funding. I write the proposals myself and then I submit them and help the community-based organisations to implement them, I advise them and then I do the progressive reports on their behalf and send them to the donors.”
She focuses on building up communities to be both tourism-ready and self-reliant. “There is a need in the community. If I want to do business in the community, I have to set up the community properly.”
Empowering women is central to her work. One of her most impactful initiatives, funded by the US Embassy, focused on gender equality and legal rights. Through the project, women learned about their rights, the way the law works and who can help when they are faced with domestic and sexual violence. Jenny is proud of her work on this important initiative: “If you want to bring change to the community, you need to change the mindset first,” she says. “When I go into the community now they say ‘this is the woman who brought light to us.’”
Jenny is also enthusiastic about one of her current projects, which is building the capacity of local artisans, fashion designers, carvers and bilum makers to improve product quality for export and expand market access. She’s also developing an agro-eco resort and preparing to move to Brisbane to work with a travel company, all while running PNG Highlands Adventures.
A passionate advocate for education and self-reliance, Jenny sees a bright future for PNG, but she believes PNG needs to focus more on basic services, to ensure they are available and affordable for everyone. She believes this gap is her greatest risk as a small business owner.
“Tourism is a sleeping giant in PNG. There is great potential to do more if roads and services are improved, and basic needs are met,” she reflects.
“For independence, I see that education in PNG is more important than anything else. When people are educated their mindset, their attitude, will change. I see that the Australia Awards scholarship still exists. Many Papua New Guineans going down to Australia, they will come back and they will change PNG.”