From Dugout Canoe to Digital Tablet

Education has never come easily for Betty.

Betty grew up in a small coastal village, tucked away in the beautiful but extremely remote Tufi fjords of Oro Province.

Throughout primary school, each day began in pitch darkness at 4:00am. She would navigate bush tracks before climbing into a traditional dugout canoe, paddling hard for an hour across the fjords to reach her classroom.

For Betty, education was not an intrinsic right, but something to be fought for.

While she loved learning, the daily challenges were immense.

No electricity to study by.

No stationery.

Limited resources.

As the eldest of eight children, family support was stretched thin.

The hurdles kept mounting.

Then, like so many bright young women in Papua New Guinea, Betty missed out on the highly competitive Grade 9 selection. For many girls, this would have been the end of their education journey.

For Betty, it became the beginning of a new one.

Today, Betty is studying at KTF's Kokoda College, where she has access to solar electricity, a digital tablet loaded with learning resources, and the opportunity to complete high school.

But reaching Kokoda College still requires a full day's travel by dinghy and PMV across some of Papua New Guinea's most remote terrain. The journey home is more than her family can afford. So Betty makes a difficult sacrifice: she stays on campus throughout the academic year, missing her family. Without a phone of her own, she borrows devices from friends and lecturers just to hear her parents' voices.

While Kokoda College provided the opportunity, Betty brought the grit.

When asked why she enrolled, she simply said:

"It was my only chance to do better, prove I can be educated and become a teacher… because my village needs a school."

Betty dreams of becoming the first person in her family to attend tertiary education before returning home as a p

rimary school teacher.

Earlier this year, she lost her grandfather - her biggest supporter.

"He is gone now, but I hope I can get educated so I can fulfil the dream he always wanted for me."

Currently in Grade 12, Betty is on track to graduate this year.