A couple of months ago a group of men from the Kogoraipa group of churches in the Yagaria came to see me.  They had formed a support group to raise money to support the missionaries the church has sent out to other parts of PNG.  They told me that had received training in growing potatoes and would be growing them and selling seed potatoes to a local company.  They felt that this avenue would not generate enough income and so they wanted help to buy able to buy laptop computers from overseas which they could sell and use the profit to support the missionaries.  They are conscious that many of the young people now are wanting laptops for university and some even for the senior years of high school.

After talking with them about what we would need in order to be able to access the internet and the sort of bank account/s we would need, I sought help from Chris in out IT department.  Chris told me about Shipito a company in the US which has been set up to post parcels [packages] around the world from the US because so many companies in the US [if not all] which sell on the internet will not post to a destination outside the U.S.  :(

Chris sent me the following toksave concerning Shipito.com

NTM PNG ICT Dept has setup an account with Shipito.com, and has used it many times for multiple purposes and highly recommends this service. Shipito provides each registered account with a Torrance California mailing address. With this address, you are then free to shop at any online retailer that ships within the US, including Ebay, Amazon.com, NewEgg, TigerDirect etc... You, or your organization would then prepay for postage at your discretion. Their rates are pretty straightforward, it costs a flat rate of $8.00 per parcel plus the actual shipping cost for each parcel to ship it to any address overseas. (We've opted to pay a premium which has brought our processing fee down to $2.50 for each parcel) Since many items such as laptops are often nearly half the price for the same items in Australia, and often 3 time cheaper than the same items in PNG, we've found significant costs savings using this service.
Whenever a parcel for your account arrives at their receiving center in Torrance California, they notify you by email, then after logging into your account, you'll have a range of options in how to send the parcel including:

• A range of airfreight services including DHL, Federal Express, Airborne etc
• Options to consolidate the package with other orders to save on shipping costs (small fee applies)
• Options to discard excess packaging again to save shipping costs (small fee applies)
• You'll receive a picture of every package that arrives
• You'll receive freight tracking numbers for each item that arrives
• You'll have an option to have Shipito open your package and take pictures for you to assess whether everything ordered has arrived (small fee applies)
• You'll have the opportunity to fill out the customs form for each parcel, designating it's contents & commercial value. (required for each parcel)
• With each parcel that arrives at Shipito's receiving center, they will also provide you with the shipping volume and weight automatically, and free of charge.
• Additionally, Shipito also offers an assisted purchasing service for both online retailers as well as brick & mortar retail stores such Walmart, Home Depot etc. This especially makes it easy to shop via email asking Shipito to source whatever you're needing. (fee applies)

In order to setup an account with Shipito, they will require passport details, billing details (bank account, Paypal account or credit card etc), there also is a form you'll need to fill out and have notarized including another form to be notarized by your local post office verifying that your identity as the receiver at your given address(s)
For more information, go to www.shipito.com One each parcel has been shipped, again you'll be notified via email.

He also suggested that a smart phone would be a better option than the 10.1" laptop I had suggested to the men for them to connect  to the internet via the Digicel tower which they can access from their village.  Chris also recommended a solar charging panel which they could use in the village to charge their phone.

In my next post I'll share the difficulties I experienced with setting up the Shipito account so that you will be able to learn from my experience and avod the pitfalls.


Then I'll share about our first successful shipment containing a 10.1" laptop, a smart phone and the solar charging panel.  I will also fill you in on the progress concerning setting up a bank account for the group and getting a Visa debit card.   Em inap long dispela taim.