Lisa Vernon left Yumi Yet Limited after finding out about Fazilah Bazahri's corrupt intentions.
Lisa Vernon was a founder member of Yu Yet, a company set up
with the intention to encourage and support grass roots approaches to well-being
and literacy in PNG. Lisa is a highly qualified management consultant and set
up YuYet in order to offer management consultancy services. Lisa
invested considerable sums of her own money in the organisation, setting up a
successful literacy training network WanpelaSkulimWanpela and offering training
to literacy tutors and schools.
She would like to make it clear that during this time she
received only 1,000 kina for expenses from Caritas plus 15,000 kina from NCDC for
the Walk for Life programme. A considerable part of this funding was spent on
supporting, transporting and feeding the young people involved in the yoga
programme. These funds also contributed to her secure accommodation for one
month. For the reminder of her time working on Walk for Life and
WanpelaSkulimWanpela, she was accommodated by friends and funded by herself.
In November 2015 Lisa resigned from the company due to her
concerns about the skills of her business partner Fazilah Bazahri and her
worries about corruption. In December
2015 Lisa was threatened at gunpoint and subsequently left the country. She has continued to support literacy
development in PNG and she feels strongly that the money spent on the Yoga
programme would be much better spent on literacy projects such as Buk Bilong
Pikinini. Lisa believes that Walk for
Life should remain a grass roots programme led by local people and that Yoga is
only one very small element of supporting the people of PNG to lead healthy and
productive lives.
Lisa is not, nor has she ever been, in a relationship with anyone
in PNG politics. Her private life is exactly that, private. She is a Christian
and comes from a solid Christian family in the UK.
- PRESS STATEMENT RELEASED TO PNGBLOGS