Maria’s family grows galip is the latest book in a series of story books about Maria’s family and their life farming and producing food in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is the sixth book in the series, which has been produced to share the messages of ACIAR-supported research projects. But the books’ benefits go beyond simple agricultural extension.
Working with women
Professor Barbara Pamphilon from the University of Canberra, creator of the Maria books, said they emerged from an ACIAR-supported project helping women in rural areas to develop business skills.
‘We chose to work with women and families who had the greatest need for further learning in agriculture. They were generally women who had not finished primary school. They also weren’t attending training because of their low literacy skills,’ said Professor Pamphilon.
‘For these women and their families, one of their biggest aims was to earn enough money from agriculture to put their children through school.
‘We saw it as an ideal opportunity to develop children’s books that could be read in schools and by parents reading to children at home.’
The storylines all come from the key research findings from ACIAR projects, including the latest one on galip nuts.
In 2014, Maria’s family goes to market – Western Highlands and Maria’s family save their kina focused on marketing and business skills. Maria’s family raises chickens, published in 2016, looked at how raising chickens could provide families with an important source of protein.
All books also build in a family farm team’s approach to decision-making, which has been developed through ACIAR research. This approach aims to share goal setting, planning and farm activities among family members. It was the specific focus of Maria’s family team, published in 2019.
