Papua New Guinean tv-series host, mother of 5, and health advocate, Jennifer Baing-Waiko, shares her journey creating Save PNG and the Healthy Pacific Campaign. She encourages Pacific communities to trust their Pacific ancestors and go back to a more traditional diet. 

Tell us about your background and where you grew up.

I grew up in Papua New Guinea. My father is a chief of the  Dampidampi clan of Ragiampun Village in the Morobe Province, and my mother is from New Zealand. I spent most of my childhood in my father’s village. My earliest memories were spending time in the garden with my grandmother and learning about our food and natural wildlife.

We eventually moved to the highlands of Papua New Guinea a  very agricultural area. Afterwards, I went to a boarding school in Australia, returned to an international school in Port Moresby, then back to Australia for University.

If you don’t have strong support from your parents to follow through in your tertiary education, it can be hard. I had a New Zealand passport which allowed me to go to school in Australia. I was jumping around different degrees and recognized that I had always wanted to be a marine biologist. After trying an international business degree, I decided to pursue a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Applied Science in Fisheries.

How did you navigate post-graduation with a degree in applied sciences in fisheries?

After graduation, I worked on a research vessel mapping the seafloor bed of a  large marine park  around the Victorian coast of Australia.

I then saved up some money and applied to be a research assistant in Costa Rica. There, we were saving turtles, teaching volunteers how to collect data, and moving turtle eggs so that poachers couldn’t steal them.

After that experience, I came back to PNG with no job. It was while I was picking up rubbish on the coastline that someone approached me. I explained to them that I had just come back from Costa Rica doing volunteer work and that I had a degree in applied science and fisheries. He said he worked for the WWF and was looking for a maritime officer. Essentially, that's how I became a Marine Officer for WWF in Madang. In this role, I had many wildlife management areas, worked to preserve the coral reefs and lagoon, and supported interactions with various coastal towns.

How did you start Save PNG?

I created Save PNG in 2007 to protect resources, culture, environment, and Melanesian health. Some of our program highlights are:

• Cafe New Guinea: A tv series where we visit different villages in Papua New Guinea, share traditional cooking recipes, and showcase traditional gardening methods. My husband and I created this to encourage Papa New Guineans to eat healthily. 

• Cafe Melanesia: Similar to Cafe New Guinea, Cafe Melanesia is a tv series that goes through Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Vanuatu to teach about their traditional cooking. 

• Healthy Pacific Campaign: This is a recently launched initiative aimed at encouraging Pacific Islanders to go back to their original food sources to combat lifestyle diseases.  Personally, I am vegan and do a plant-based diet in the Pacific. We are encouraging our communities to go back to a more original diet, to conserve our seeds, and embrace traditional medicines.

What advice do you have for young Pacific Islanders interested in traditional agriculture and diets?

• We need to hold on to traditional knowledge. We need to help our people and cultures.  We’ve gone in this big circle to be modernized and to adapt to a modernized system. Now we’re starting to see its flaws, and that it’s about to collapse. We have such a deep knowledge system that we are losing. We need to work towards sustainable living and conserve our environment.  

• Don’t think that you need to live the 9 to 5 job and sit in an office all day. You can work from home, connect from home, live your life, and inspire people through your traditional knowledge. Show them how to plant foods or how to make a yam garden. What you know is valuable. There is nobody around the world who knows what you know. The knowledge your family holds is valuable.

• Learn from your elders before they pass away with that knowledge. We’ve got to acknowledge that we have  got things to learn, so start weaving, reiki, dancing, or cooking. Even if you are away from home, connect with people back home. 

• Connect to me through @eden_inspired_ on instagram or and Healthy Pacific on Facebook. Like us on Facebook, follow us on instagram and connect with me through LinkedIn. Let’s have a dialogue.