Baia Oleam Warapa works for the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Daru, South Fly of Western Province in Papua New Guinea. His role in this capacity is administering a parish and carrying out research and surveys for the church. His past roles include working with International Non-Government Organisations, World Vision and Marie Stopes. With Marie Stopes, he managed a Family Planning program in South and Middle Fly Districts, introducing clinically safe Family Planning choices for mothers in the rural communities where birth and infant mortality rates are some of the highest in PNG.
With World Vision, his engagement was in community development work, using the Healthy Islands motivation as a mindset change tool to intervene into communities. He carried out community mobilizations and baseline surveys before introducing Water Sanitation and Hygiene {WaSH} services to rural disadvantaged communities.
Baia’s experience also includes working in the Torres Strait Islands and some Aboriginal Communities in the city of Perth for three years in a Church project called Global Mission Pioneer. He worked as pastor for the Seventh Day Adventist church and also as a social worker engaging with volunteer groups in Australia to advocate healthy lifestyles for the Torres Strait and Aboriginal communities including coastal villages of Papua New Guinea. He is also a counsellor by training and worked as Chaplain in Mount Diamond Adventist Secondary School with an average student population of no less than 600 for five years. Baia has given much of his time and effort into community developing work to disadvantaged communities and people.
