Chimbu man wins World of Children Health Award

CHIMBU man Jimmy Drekore received the World of Children Health Award 2016 last Tuesday in New York, USA.

Jimmy Drekore is the founder and chief executive officer of the Simbu Children’s Foundation.

He was recognised for his work in helping rural Papua New Guinean children access medical care.

Drekore began his work 12 years ago when he met a 10-year-old girl at a hospital.

She was abandoned at the hospital after she was brought in with injuries sustained in a road accident.

Drekore noticed that the girl had been living in the hospital alone for seven years.

He also met other children just like the girl with no one to love them or advocate for their medical care.

Drekore called on his community in Chimbu to help children in need of medical care.

Since the founding of Simbu Children’s Foundation, he and a network of volunteer fundraisers in PNG and Australia have been providing financial support and maintenance of facilities to the Sir Joseph Nombri Memorial Hospital in Chimbu, a power project for a local orphanage, travel expenses for children to receive heart surgery, and even funded research that successfully developed a new treatment for a painful bone disease suffered by many local children.

Drekore was among five people chosen from thousands of nominations for this year’s awards.

World of Children is an organisation dedicated to setting a gold standard in child advocacy.