A community-based organisation in Mendi benefits from World Vision training
Timothy Mako and Sandra Yambaki are the founders of a Community-Based organization based in Mendi; Southern Highlands province called the ‘Southstar Sports Development Association’ (SSDA).
From very humble beginnings the duo set up their association in 2018 to foster development in youths, especially those with drug problems, and using basketball as a means for the youth to rehabilitate and become advocates for sports and other youths in the Southern Highlands.
It wasn’t an easy road to get his own association registered. For 10 years, Timothy traveled widely as a Basketball Federation rep doing volunteer work running basketball coaching clinics and training youths in coaching basketball around the Southern Highlands.
“When we started the association, we had no idea what we were doing and how to run an association. Neither of us had ever done any training or received any formal business skills and so we were doing it as best we could,” said Tim about the early years of the association.
Timothy, a former PNG basketball representative and coach said it was his calling to give back to his people and province in a positive way. Originally from Kagua Erave, Timothy has now made Mendi his home and purchased some land which he intends to use with support from development partners to build an indoor community basketball court.
Cofounder Sandra is a Project Officer with their association and when speaking about her passion said, “Basketball is a sport that comes naturally to Southern Highlanders, therefore, it was only a natural progress for Timothy to use his skills to encourage and through their community-based organization (CBO) encourage more youths in Mendi township and surrounding areas to use sports as a means to channel their aggression and divert their energies to a more profound calling in playing the sports and also coaching it.”
Timothy and Sandra were again a part of the second training on Due Diligence Training and Safeguarding conducted as part of World Visions ‘Faith in Action Project.’ At a stakeholders meeting held on 22nd October 2024, Timothy recommended the training as the ‘best’ and requested for more training to continue as it helped the community-based organizations in the Province that attended.
“It wasn’t really until March 2023, when Mapera (World Vision Faith in Action Project Officer) invited us to go do the “Due Diligence training” and Safeguarding Training”, that we began to understand ‘what’ and ‘how’ to run our association,” Tim beams.
The SSDAs first achievement was to receive support from a donor agency through the networking of World Vision for their visibility as CBO who promotes peace curriculum through basketball to host the ‘Peace Cup’ competition after almost 15 years in Southern Highlands Province. It proved to be successful, and they have received a lot of interest in supporting sports advocates for peacebuilding with other donors as well.
“We are grateful that World Vision recognises that local CBOs can work together with them in conflict resolution and peace-building activities so they are also helping us to set up our associations and we can work together to address some of our ongoing youth issues here in the Southern Highlands together.
“We have the same intention here in the Southern Highlands, and that is to help youths who are a part of the vulnerable groups to become advocates of change and peaceful conflict resolution and peacebuilding through whatever means. At SSDA we use basketball, and we have seen that it has proven successful,” Timothy explained whilst displaying the training model he developed called “Peace Guides which is an 8-month program that trains youths to coach basketball,” he added.
In 2025, World Vision’s Faith in Action Project funded by World Vision US, aims to work together with SSDA to support basketball in the 6 Youth Clubs formed in Karinz LLG of Mendi Munhiu in the Southern Highlands Province.
Sandra said, “When we teach youths using the Peace Guide and playing basketball, we teach them that basketball is about discipline and respect. There is a team, and you need to work together, and everyone has a role to play and respect each other. This is the same for how they should behave in tier communities.”
Timothy and Sandra hope that World Vision through its Faith in Action and other Project training, engagement, and partnership with local community-based organizations capacity building will continue so that the peace-building initiatives will continue and be sustained by local associations and organizations and when the youth engagement peace clubs is initiated by the World Vision Peace Building project, CBOs like SSDA will have the capacity to be engaged by the project and support the important work of peacebuilding in the Southern Highlands.