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Few organisations have received the prestigious honour of being featured on a postage stamp however, the Digicel PNG Foundation was given the tribute recently when it was announced that it was to be commemorated on a Papua New Guinean postage stamp.

The announcement was made to honour the Kaugere Women’s Resource Centre – a Digicel Foundation-funded project that offers immediate shelter to women and children in crisis as well as being used as a training and empowerment facility.

A first for Digicel, the PNG stamp – valued at K1.05 (US$0.45c) – was officially issued depicting the Kaugere Women’s Resource Centre at a ceremony on 21st June, 2011. The centre was selected, amongst other projects, to be depicted on the new stamps related to “Urban Safety and Crime Prevention in PNG”. The Yumi Lukautim Mosbi (YLM), a project funded by AusAID, is a concept which brings together stakeholders from across all sectors of PNG as participants in jointly solving urban safety and crime prevention issues. YLM put forward the Kaugere Women’s Resource Centre as a blueprint concept of the scheme.

Digicel Foundation CEO, Marina Van der Vlies, said; “The Digicel Foundation is honoured to have received this prestigious award which commemorates our work with the Kaugere Women’s Resource Centre. We have engaged in over 100 projects throughout Papua New Guinea since the Digicel Foundation’s inception and we are thrilled to be working to support urban safety and crime prevention across the country.”

The Digicel PNG Foundation was especially acknowledged by the speakers – Dave Conn, CEO Chamber of Commerce and Peter Maiden, CEO Post PNG – as an important partner and active participant from the corporate sector in the YLM program and in the area of urban safety and crime prevention in general.

Project co-ordinator, Rabura Aiga, said the launch of the stamps is “fully home grown and the first of its kind”.

Across all of its markets, Digicel is committed to giving back to its communities in a positive way. This has seen it establishing Digicel Foundations in three of its major markets – Haiti, Jamaica and Papua New Guinea – to help build sustainable communities and foster economic growth. To date, a total of US$3 million has been directed towards the establishment of more than 100 projects in the area of education and health in Papua New Guinea.