Mum steps in to build school library

Lauren White (pictured) is a mother of three-year old twin girls and had lived on Lihir for only a few months when she hatched a plan to open a library at the Londolovit Urban Primary School.

“Every time I drove by the school I would be upset by obviously how little the kids have … when I realised that they didn’t even have a library I knew I had to do something.”

Lauren started asking her friends and family to donate books for a library but didn’t get as many as she had hoped. Then she came across Books 4 Kids, an Australian organisation that collects books from libraries and other businesses and boxes them up for schools in PNG.

“They said they would send me around 2000 books – I just couldn’t believe my luck,” says Lauren.

“But then I realised that I would need somewhere to put them all and it was then that Anitua and Newcrest came to my rescue.

“Newcrest’s Lihir Gold Operation donated the shipping container and Anitua Constructions are refurbishing it so that it looks and feels like a proper library.”

Anitua Logistics has also helped by shipping the books to Lihir for free.