ATS SETTLEMENT LIBRARY

The BbP Library Learning Centre (LLC) at the ATS settlement serves some of the most vulnerable children just outside Port Moresby. Not only is the area hard to access and has got very limited services, the dwellings people live in are also under threat of being demolished by developers. The LLC is located at Oro village – within the ATS community which stands for Air Transport Squadron Community and is located just next to the ATS Barracks.

The ATS settlement traditionally houses Orokivas from Popondetta and Oro Province which is clearly visible when the children dress up in traditional attire. However, since early 2000 people from Milne Bay and other parts of PNG have moved into the settlement as well. Many of the people living at ATS are unemployed and in serious financial hardship which means that many children are not enrolled at school.

We opened the LLC in November 2013 in partnership with World Vision, which sponsored the LLC until 2015. Between 2015-2017 the LLC was sponsored by a grant from the Australian Government through the then AusAid. After a period of struggling to find sponsorship for the program to keep operating the Sir Brian Bell Foundation stepped in to prevent the closure of the library and has been generously sponsoring it ever since.