They have included Paradise Colleague, St Joseph’s International Colleague, Sunrise Bethel Christian School, Caritas Primary School and Pacific Adventist University.

But I didn’t just travel with my passion, I met so many different people with different backgrounds and personalities.

And although my journey was intended to inspire and motivate them, I ended up being inspired and motivated myself.

Now, I wake up everyday and tell myself, “I want to do better than yesterday, the day before or even all the other days”.

So what a journey it has been so far.

Caroline with Paradise College students

On 7 August, I visited Paradise Colleague, located within Skyview Estate outside Port Moresby, to speak to the Grade 10 students.

Language and literature teacher and fellow Papua New Guinean author, Samantha Kusari, invited me a week before the students began to study literature.

On 9 August, I presented at the Book Week program at St Joseph’s International College to an audience of parents, teachers and students from pre-school to Grade 12.

On 16 August, I met with the principal of the Sunrise Bethel School and on 3 September, in conjunction with the PNG National Library and Archives, I hosted a free information session on writing and publishing in PNG to 12 people.

I will be hosting another free session on 30 September at the same place – the National Library in Port Moresby - and have extended the invitation to students from the University of Papua New Guinea.

Caroline's first information session at the National Library

The benefit of this session is that people walk away with knowledge of:

• How to develop themselves as writers
  
  
• The benefits of writing
  
  
• What to write about in PNG
  
  
• How and where to publish
  
  
• Motivating yourself to complete your writing
  
  

On 5 September, I spent the afternoon inspiring Pacific Adventist University’ss first ever creative writing class.

Each student had just finished writing a short autobiography and my session generated a lot of interest, especially on the process of publishing.

On 9 September, I visited Caritas Primary School where I had separate sessions with each class sharing one of my children’s storybooks published by Library for All, ‘Old Mulga and the Pawpaw Tree’.

The eager students of Caritas Primary School

Before my visit to Caritas, the students and teachers spent a week studying my books and preparing questions which I was able to discuss with them after the reading sessions.

Each class also did a survey of the most interesting story and had them posted on their notice boards. It was a pleasant surprise and brought tears to my eyes.

Most of the students’ interest was around stories about nature, traditional art and knowledge.

From 27-30 October, I will finally be in Oro Province visiting at least three schools – one elementary, one primary and one secondary.

This self-driven project has seen a lot of generous individuals come forward with support and I am so grateful. They have purchased books for free distribution, provided transport, lunches, venues and even paid for a plane ticket.

May you all be rewarded abundantly for your kindness.

Remember, all you need is passion and along the way the help you need will come.