Dobu Island family in canoe 10x15 Acrylic
I took this photograph off the small island of Dobu, of the the D'Entrecasteaux Islands in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. This lady and her family had paddled across to us; partly to see if they could sell us some local produce, but probably mostly out of curiosity. In many ways Dobu still feels like an untouched paradise; people still live very traditional, largely subsistence lifestyles. There are no roads, and the interior is heavily forested, so people travel mostly by outrigger canoe. Most of these are hand-made from a single tree, and either paddled of sporting a patchwork sail of stitched together bits of old tarpaulin and miscellaneous scraps of canvas and polyester. At the last published census, somewhere around 10,000 people lived on or around Dobu, but that was 40 years ago so the number may be twice that now.
I have decided that 20% of the profit from all my prints from Papua New Guinea will go to the Wantok Support Charity, a UK based charity working to support people in Papua New Guinea who have financial difficulties, and supporting education, health and environmental projects in PNG. You can read more about the Wantok Support here www.wantoksupport.org.uk.