The “Hantoa Fraternity Hub” project represents a new grassroots initiative. Indigenous women from the Catholic Women’s Association have come together to address one of the most pressing socioeconomic challenges facing their community in Hantoa, a small rural town on the island and diocese of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, in the Pacific Ocean. A significant number of young, poor women remain inactive and neglected due to the lack of structured local employment. Economic and social vulnerability negatively impacts them, affecting their lives and the stability of their family.
So, upon hearing about the Award, the Women’s Association identified a project to develop, working together with the parish of Hantoa, under the guidance of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, and the local municipality. The parish is strategically located along a main road, characterized by a high volume of travellers. More than 8,200 people pass through it every day, transported in trucks and open vans. The nearest hotels and restaurants are thirty kilometers away, and they also offer poorly preserved and unhygienically unsafe food. Recognizing the socioeconomic challenges of the women of Hantoa and the opportunity presented by the concrete needs of travellers, the Catholic Women’s Association projected a “Hub of Fraternity” with three distinct and complementary sections:
- A restaurant, offering drinks, local products (vegetables, fruits, etc.), and fresh, nutritious meals.
- A tailoring workshop, next to the restaurant and within the same building, which allows women trained in the trade to make and sell traditional clothes suited to the local climate.
- A vegetable garden, also managed by young people, which guarantees fresh vegetables and fruit for the restaurant, thus contributing to food safety and cost reduction.
The Association has already begun work to identify a site for the project, in an abandoned school building. The building contains a room and a plot of land that will be renovated for the initiative. Once launched, the three sections will follow a rotation system, ensuring the daily involvement of approximately one hundred women, who will independently carry out the various activities with shared responsibility. The local bishop, who strongly supports the project, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which will accompany it, and the local municipality, which will provide training, have confirmed, through written statements and discussions, the credibility and sustainability of the project.
The application was accompanied by a detailed budget, showing all expected costs and a four-phase timeline for the first year. By the end of the first year, the business is expected to be operationally stable, generate regular income for the participating women, and establish a collective savings mechanism to ensure its long-term sustainability.
Rooted in the principles of fraternity, solidarity, and environmental protection, “Hantoa Fraternity Hub” is a project that demonstrates and encourages grassroots economic processes. In it, women with limited employment opportunities, rejected and vulnerable, leverage their physical, moral, and material resources around a worthy project idea. Thanks to the financial support of the Award and the fraternal support of the parish and municipality, they are aiming for economic and social emancipation for the benefit of the local community, becoming an example of a new economy of fraternity for the Bougainville region, the territory of Papua New Guinea, and the entire Pacific Ocean.