Sustainable Development Goals
The Project
This project aims to strengthen human capacity within the Diocese of Kundiawa by developing self‑reliance, strong work ethics, and sound governance practices among staff. Through targeted mentoring and ongoing professional development, the initiative will enhance job‑related discipline, motivation, reliability, and accountability across administrative staff, Catholic education personnel, Mengende Hospital administration, and technical schoolteachers.
A Palms participant will mentor at least nine local employees, conducting regular training sessions and performance appraisals to build practical management and workplace skills. By the end of the placement period, mentees—together with their supervisors—will be better equipped to fulfil their roles and responsibilities effectively, contributing to a more capable and sustainable diocesan workforce.
The Location
Papua New Guinea is one of Australia’s nearest neighbours and the poorest country in our region and Kundiawa is the capital of Simbu (Chimbu) Province in the central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It is a small but significant administrative and commercial hub, known for its rugged mountain landscapes, strong cultural traditions, and reliance on subsistence and small‑scale agriculture. Life in Kundiawa blends traditional village culture with the administrative functions of a provincial capital. Most people live in rural hamlets and come into town for work, trade, education, or transport.
The Challenge
The Diocese of Kundiawa manages and implements several services including health and education. Although the Diocese of Kundiawa has established systems for probation and annual performance contracts, significant challenges remain in building the long‑term project planning, execution, and accountability skills required for sustainable program management. Staff often struggle to develop the capacity and commitment needed for extended project cycles, and when projects deviate from plans, limited time and confidence make it difficult to hold project leads accountable.
At present, a local employee cannot sustainably fill the Auditor and Continuous Improvement Officer’s role without substantial capacity strengthening. A volunteer is therefore required to mentor a local staff member, supporting the development of practical skills, workplace discipline, teamwork, and a positive professional attitude. This mentoring will benefit Diocese staff, coordinators, education leaders, health administrators, and technical workers, who will be better equipped to perform their roles and pass on improved practices to new recruits and their wider communities.
About You
Palms participants for this placement will need to demonstrate the following qualifications, skills, and attributes:
- Experienced in Administration and Finance and development of employees’ performance.
- Training expertise across design, delivery, implementation, and assessment.
- Ability to work collaboratively within a team in community contexts and with various stakeholders.
- Effective communication skills.
- A commitment to teamwork, coaching, and mentoring others.
- Patience, adaptability and flexibility in responding to diverse challenges.
- Cultural sensitivity and openness to engaging within a different cultural context.
- The ability to cope with cultural isolation and different living standards
- Commitment to serve in Kundiawa for a minimum of 12 months and up to two years, working with limited resources and facilities.
- Willingness to engage their Australian community in promoting the work of the host organisation and their role.
How You Will Help
First you must be willing to learn from the local community.
Over the first several weeks you are asked not to change anything or suggest a change to operations. During that period you will take the time to learn language and cultural mores from a local counterpart willing to mentor you. You will also start a register of the strengths of the current personnel and the assets in the community/country that might be used to achieve the goals of the assignment.
You need to commit to clarifying why things are done the way they are rather than presuming from your own cultural lens to outline what is missing. So, you need to ask questions to enable you to learn from your hosts, rather than in ignorance make suggestions about how things can improve. Palms training will prepare you for this approach.
From then onward, your responsibilities are to:
- Initially assess financial management skills of financial administrative staff. Based on level of skills obtained, the volunteer shall be responsible for:
- Developing simple financial management of financial administrative processes depending on the financial needs of agencies.
- Establishing a routine but regular plan of coaching the administrative staff in the required financial activities building their skills on their sound understanding of the logistics of financial management.
- Training “on-the-job’ through a one-to-one or group engagement, depending on an agency needs and circumstances.
- Developing, coaching and regular appraisal of learning and performance shall be conducted at short intervals to ascertain a level of genuine learning and skill progress.
- Conducting quarterly audits of relevant units led by the mentees to ensure learnings and ‘best practices’ are applied.
- The above process should primarily concentrate on the Diocesan Financial office, Mengende hospital, and Mengende TVET, however, the bishop may request a similar process for Rosary Kondiu High School and Dirima Ladies College.
- Development of theoretical and practical training for pre-selected persons would be highly desirable to establish a pool of “skilled financial personnel, ready to fill vacancies in a highly mobile work force.
- Document the progress and impact of mentorship program by collecting evidence from individual performances and stories of change from the mentees.