Lord Somers Camp

[aussie]

15 Grant Street,
COLAC 3250,

23rd October, 2006.

Dear ex trekker,

As a member of the Lord Somers and Power House organisation, I am approaching you to help us provide sponsorship to a young man from the village of Kokoda in Papua New Guinea and bring him to Melbourne to attend our January 2007 Camp.

We would like Wallace Lemeki to be able to participate as a member of the adult staff of the camp as a way of helping his personal development and leadership training skills for his role as a guide in the company that employs him to lead people across the famous Kokoda Track.

Photograph: Wallace Lemeki
Wallace.jpg

[aussie]

Briefly, I met Wallace in September 2004 when he also walked the Track for the first time as a personal porter, helping our group of 37 Lord Somers and Power House people walk the Track in honour of the men from the 2 / 14th Battalion who had been active Power House men before they went to war in 1939. This incredible experience inspired me to return with a group from my school, Colac College this year and amazingly, Wallace was again in our trekking party, this time walking it for his nineteenth time.

I was thrilled to see how much he had developed over this time, from a shy young man to now be a very capable, hard working, engaging and generous man, who was clearly becoming a leader amongst his peers. He looked after us with the same spirit that has been immortalised in the legend of the ‘fuzzy wuzzy angel’ that epitomises the way the PNG men look after the Australians who walk the track today.

Lord Somers – Powerhouse Group of 37 – September 2004:
Lord_Somers_Power_House_Group_of_37.jpg

[aussie]

In fact, Wallace has just acted as the personal guide along the track to the first blind Australian to complete the walk I have just been informed. I cannot convey to you in these few words just what an achievement that is, but it does not surprise me about Wallace.

Wallace (blue cap) seen here with Charlie McConnell our blind trekker who finished his trek last week.
100_0822.jpg

[aussie]

So, what I am asking you for is to help financially in us bringing Wallace to Melbourne and to Lord Somers Camp this January.

Overall, we are intending to raise $2,500 to fly Wallace to Melbourne from Kokoda and return and sponsor him to participate in the work of the Camp that runs for a week.

For more information about the great work of this organisation I urge you to contact our General Manager, Ian Gibson at the Lakeside office in Albert Park on (03) 9510 7066.

We hope that this project will be successful in strengthening the ongoing ties between Power House and the young men of Kokoda in order to in some way continue the bond that exists between Kokoda and Australia and to help repay their service to Australians since 1942.

Will you help us please? Contact Michael at (03) 52 322161 or

barrand@colaccollege.vic.edu.au

Yours faithfully,

Michael Barrand and
John Prossor

Michael Barrand (Blue Shirt) and other trekkers and porters seen here when they came to trek 17th – 25th September, 2006:
IMGP2409.jpg

[Author]

Posts