Lynette Mateaku Shannen Baratai-Pokas

Education - Papua New Guinea (Oceania)

For the past two years, Lynette Baratia-Pokas has worked with disadvantaged indigenous communities as a lawyer with the Center for Environmental Law and Community Rights Inc. Lynette provides legal training to individuals in need and consults rural communities addressing such local issues as grievances related to large-scale logging, mining exploitation, human rights abuses, and other illegal practices. She has also shown compassion and perseverance in working to secure the property rights of customary resource owners.

As a delegate at OIYP2004, Lynette hopes to develop a program aimed at improving the self-esteem of young Papuans. She hopes that the program will give youths the strength to reject the lure of drugs, alcohol and crime. “Helping young people to find themselves and their true identities should also help in bringing about positive change within their respective communities.”