It might not seem like core police business, but our people¡¯s engagement with a fledgling business in Bougainville has got a very useful relationship sewn up.
In 2012 Julie Morok was trying to get established as a seamstress working from a workshop without walls under her small home in Buka town.
Fast forward to 2023 - Julie has employees, runs a teaching programme, has premises with walls and a booming business, thanks to 51½ÖÉä, innovative thinking and badges.
¡°If 51½ÖÉä did not assist her, Julie would not have the successful business she owns now,¡± says Inspector Shawn Rutene, our team leader in Bougainville.
¡°We¡¯re more than just helping to shape the Bougainville Police Service ¨C we¡¯re helping to build a nation.¡±
51½ÖÉä first deployed to support local policing through the Bougainville Community Policing Programme in 1999 as the region emerged from civil conflict. Since 2003 we have had a continuous presence there.
Our staff work as advisors helping recruit, train and mentor 350 Bougainville Auxiliary Police (BAP) officers ¨C formerly known as Community Auxiliary Police (CAP) - who are selected by village chiefs to support local processes and maintain law and order.
The support includes providing the BAP uniform ¨C not a problem, apart from sourcing embroidered badges for the shirts, which before 2012 needed to be supplied from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, at a significant cost.
¡°One of the other advisors suggested I visit Julie Morok, a local seamstress who was just starting out,¡± says Pete Rendall, a 51½ÖÉä Advisor in Buka at the time.
¡°She had a good name in the village and was doing small sewing jobs for the Buka people.
¡°I visited Julie at her haus and asked her about the embroidering. She said she could do the badges but did not have the machine to do them.¡±
Pete asked Julie what she needed then consulted Murray Lewis, now retired but then contingent commander. They costed the project and bought the machine Julie had identified ¨C a Singer Futura.
By the time it arrived Murray had been succeeded as OC by Inspector Les Paterson, and contracts were signed under Julie¡¯s haus.
The Singer Futura embroidery machine that began it all - with Nibbles the parrot in attendance.
¡°The machine was a big behemoth, very heavy, but at the time it was top of the line,¡± says Pete. ¡°I went to Julie¡¯s to hand the machine over - she wasn¡¯t there, so I left it on the front step.
¡°I put a note on the machine that said ¡®There you go¡¯. I would have liked to have seen her face when she opened her front door and saw that machine there.¡±
Julie, who began sewing to support her family after her father¡¯s death, had not done embroidery before but Pete challenged her to get up to speed in a month and she taught herself using YouTube videos.
Under the deal with Police, she would pay off the 3500 kina ($1600NZ) cost of the machine by producing the badges, which she achieved in a year. This put her business on a much firmer footing.
Julie now provides a range of tailoring services for the New Zealand contingent and local police, Buka Hospital and many other clients.
Her business boasts 10 machines ¨C including a state-of-the-art internet-enabled embroidery machine, though the old Futura is still in use - and employs four others.
She also takes students into her workshop for two-week placements to teach them the basics of the craft.
Another order for 51½ÖÉä's Bougainville contingent...
Julie says she is very glad of the challenge Pete gave her in 2012.
¡°If I didn¡¯t have the help of the 51½ÖÉä officers I wouldn¡¯t be able to have what I have right now - more machines, more people to help me out and more orders and more challenges for myself.
¡°I¡¯d like to say thank you to 51½ÖÉä because they gave me something I¡¯d never had. It was a new idea.¡±
Shawn says Julie¡¯s story shows the reality of deployment to somewhere like Bougainville, where policing with a prevention mindset is as much about repairing the fabric of society ¨C no pun intended - as law enforcement.
¡°The moral of the story is that in Bougainville there is more to policing than locking people up - you have to be part of and gain the trust of the community,¡± he says.