Our Background YBO has a very humble beginning. The name of the Consultancy is a popular name or initial in the Highlands of Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. There is an actual story about how the phrase was developed by a couple of our boys. YBO Consultancy will present the story of its origins of the phrase in one of its major papers, giving it the popularity, time and dedication it deserves for such a motivational icon in our community. The initial YBO meant “Yampu Brothers Organization.” Yampu is a small Catholic station with a Health Center run by the Catholic Church. It is just about 30 Kilometers away from the Wabag town, the provincial capital of Enga Province. There are regular PMV runs between Yampu and Wabag and its costs K1.00 for to and from Wabag. Yampu and its surrounding communities, villages and tribes are known for their peace-loving people. As Enga being rated one of the countries most notorious provinces in tribal warfare, Yampu maintains one of the model communities in promoting a peaceful province. The youngsters of Yampu are known for their local life-bands such as “YBO NETA Band and Junior NETA Band.” NETA initially meant Neneo and Takikin clans from which the majority of the band members came from. When NETA took the stage in the 1990s and made popular tours all over Enga. Our boys where the talk of the province during those days. NETA became blended with YBO and it was NETA that put the YBO icon on stage. When people talk about NETA band, they refer to it as the band of the YBOs. NETA Band became popular in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s as we are known for our great performances on stage. The boys were actually on hire all over the province, performing on stage in various concerts. They even played a part in singing for various political heroes during those times. Our boys are known for their patience, easy-going and peace-making character. That’s why people from other districts and places used to comment Yampu as one of the only peaceful communities in Enga Province, “The Place To Be.” YBO Consultancy got the name because of the local boys’ patient, peace and easy-going attitudes and behaviors. YBO Consultancy will maintain the ‘hereditary instincts’ of peace and patient that was passed on from the first YBO generation. YBO Consultancy aims to be a professional consultant company made up of highly educated and professional elites from the Enga Province, mainly from Yampu and the surrounding communities, villages and tribes. However, the Consultancy also extends its invitation to other PNG citizens who share the same principles, beliefs and aims and goals. YBO Consultancy was first initiated in 2002 by Peter Kanaparo a Postgraduate (Honors) student with the School of Business Administration, University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and Nicholas Wakan a fourth year Commerce student (Accountancy Major) at the University of Technology, Lae Morobe Province. We decided to launch a temporary website during the 2003 Christmas period. Peter was then contacted by a youth seminar in Noumea via our website and was told to present one of our papers in mid 2003. You can find the details on Previous Presentations. Our initiative was to launch the icon and brand name of our community as a motivational tool in involving and engaging the youth of our community to be more productive and beneficial, rather than a cost to society. We wanted to launch the YBO icon to the next level, and that is to formally register it as an organization capable of doing more than just being an icon name; we wanted it to be the uniting factor in mobilizing our youths to appreciate the history of our past. In 2004 Christmas, we organized a small meeting of YBOs at Yampu, with the few who made it upon receipt of the email and notice we circulated (refer to attached email on the other side). We therefore concluded that the best way to go about setting up a formal organization was for Peter Kanaparo and Nicholas Wakan to launch the YBO Consultancy as our first move. YBO Consultancy comprises of highly educated students from The University of Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea University of Technology, Divine Word University, Seminarians, professionals from outside working environment and academics (see profiles in Partner in YBO Consultancy). It also has a unique combination of elders from Enga Province as the basic source of our ancient history. They form an integral part of our consultancy as providers of raw data in our research. A dedicated team of village youths are always on standby to provide information regarding anything, and to carry out practical research work which requires interviews, travel, and general enquiries. Even now, we are actually conducting a number of researches to draw as much information as we can out of the few living elderly of our villages. As much of our history has been passed down as oral history, YBO Consultancy feels that we have a noble task to transfer the oral history of our people into written material so that future generations would appreciate the history of our beginnings.

The following is an email extract that Peter Kanaparo and I (Nicholas Wakan) sent to various members of our community, informing of the launching of YBO Consultancy. It gives a more in-depth explanation of YBO Consultancy and its background, aims, and goals. RE: FRIENDLY GATHERING FOR YBOs Good Day to you all, Elites of YBO. I would like to propose an idea for you all to comment on.  It would be a great idea for all of us to have some kind of get-together or re-union during the Christmas break at Yampu. As we are well aware, YBO has been on and around for a good number of years.  We have had such popular and famous brand names as the YBO Neta Band, Ambum Mangani, (which of course, was a combination of majority of YBOs), and even in Tertiary Institutions like Unitech and UPNG, the YBO myth lives on.  I believe that those even in the workforce, who have known and lived with and under the covering of the name YBO, still continue to do so. Because YBO is not only a name but an icon and a symbol of our origin, unity and our uniqueness.  It is and should be the popular icon of today's new generation of YBOs because from it, we can effectively address issues of vital concern to the community.  We are living in a society where change is so rapid that we are unable to clearly identify right from wrong.  There is an identity crisis all over the country even as I speak because we have not properly prepared for the magnitude of change we are experiencing today.  Today's youths of our villages are worse than those in the early 1990s and backwards as there are increased rates of law and order problems, unemployment and the trafficking and consumption of drugs.  Our youths have the food and the water at home but why is the there an increase in the HIV/AIDS cases, drug consumption, and other such social problems that are not necessarily related to unemployment as in the cities? Young people in our villages are only trying to find a place in society, an identity to associate with. The old and the traditional do not suit them and us because they and we are unable to clearly understand the values in them from an educated point of view. Thus, if society continues to be at the rate as it is today, and if it gains momentum over time, the future of our communities and tribes in our villages is at stake. We are more or less continuing to contributing towards a ‘failed state’ as referred to and labelled by foreign media if we only show ignorance to such issues of vital concern. I believe that we should revive the icon of YBO and stake it on high as a positive identity tag for us all. Politics cannot do it. Religion alone cannot do it. Nor, the customs and the traditions of our tribes. It is the educated youth of today and we should look into re-designing the kind of Yampu Community that we want tomorrow. We can combine politics, religion and the laws of the land under one umbrella to work for the better of us. Such an umbrella is nothing other than a well established icon like the name YBO. Through it, we can effectively and efficiently communicate to the troubled youth of our villages. We should now look at formally setting the icon name YBO to the next level.  We have the ideas, and we have the people, and we have resources.  What we need today is for us to cooperatively move together and make it known to ourselves and the community at large. I now refer back to the matter I raised in the beginning; and that is; should we all organise for a meeting of the youths via some friendly games during the Christmas break at the roots of YBO? I know many of you out there have never been home for the last 2 to three years or even longer. This is your opportunity to plan for your holiday so as to fall in line with our proposed gathering. I now leave the discussion on the floor for all of you to comment and make suggestions. Please forward this message to anyone that is from the Yampu Community; Yakane, Malipin and Yanairin, who is distinguishably direct or indirectly attached with the Yampu Community and who has a passion for the community.