As a direct result of violence, families are forced out of their homes and displaced, harming both their mental and physical health.

Our project will seek to talk with people who have experienced violence first hand and those advocating for the prevention of violence.

The study is being conducted by lead researcher Alister Gee. You can contact co-researchers Genevieve here and Bianca here.

We are a growing network of armed violence reduction specialists working in universities and NGOs convened by the Centre for Armed Violence Reduction (CAVR).

CAVR is a registered Australian charity and its staff have over 20 years’ experience in weapon management and violence reduction in PNG and like countries.

Our past projects have mainly partnered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the PNG Principles of International Human Rights Law Committee.

We maintain a gun policy data page on PNG that you can link to here. 

CAVR has organised several Pacific conferences and workshops on gun control and is also the secretariat of the Pacific Small Arms Action Group.

Our anti-gun violence services are available at no cost as we arrange international grants.

If they are useful, we intend to maintain these services – which focus on prevention, incident reporting and response - for the next 10 years or more.

CAVR gathers, maps and stores information for each country and turn the information into content such as case studies, reports and campaign material, and also create training programs.

We do this in partnership with interested stakeholders in PNG, especially law enforcement, local government, civil society organisations, community and church leaders and the media.

The aim is to provide stakeholders with information to assist their anti-gun violence work and to enable greater networking and coordination.

Improved links between communities, local government and law enforcement agencies will enable improved prevention strategies.

We are familiar with PNG legal and justice strategies such as:

• to improve, support and coordinate existing government law and order functions and interventions to prevent criminal behaviour
  
  
• to encourage, support and coordinate church, NGO and other initiatives to prevent crime
  
  
• to build community participation in crime prevention

CAVR also has developed the ArmsTracker system that brings together government record-keeping, stockpile management, tracing, reporting, identification and interagency cooperation to facilitate better national arms and ammunition control.

You can link here for more information on ArmsTracker.

Most public anti-gun violence campaigns struggle to reach a wide audience with the frequency desired.

We hope some of our services are of interest to you and look forward to hearing about your work and whether we can be of assistance.

If you are interested in discussing this further, you can contact Genevieve and Bianca or our executive director, Alistair Gee.