Gaming Board helps women’s contest with K250,000

The Miss Pacific Islands Pageantry (MPIP) PNG received a major boost this week when the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB) donated K250,000 for this year’s contest.
The NGCB has been supporting the pageant from its community benefit fund for the past seven years.
NGCB chief executive Imelda Agon said the MPIP PNG scholarship fund was an important platform for empowering women in Papua New Guinea.
She told the contestants at the cheque presentation: “Many women are looking up to you. They want to see how you chart the way.”
Miss Pacific Islands PNG chairperson Molly O’Rourke thanked the NGCB for the seven years of partnership.
She explained that the annual donation from NGCB went towards the scholarship fund, staging of the project runway, the pageant week, hosting the crowning ball and the  trip to a Pacific Islands country for the regional pageant. This year the Miss Pacific Islands Pageant will be in Fiji.
“This year we spent over K80,000 to sponsor 47 young women to complete their studies in tertiary institutions. In the last seven years, we raised over K600,000 and educated over 190 young women,” O’Rourke said.
“Next year we will be introducing the annual Ruby Laufa Award to enable a young law student to complete her legal training Institute studies.”