While the challenges of DIY furniture have lead to spanners and obscenities being thrown around Australian homes, in Papua New Guinea the flat pack is creating a whole lot of joy.
Flatpack kits are proving a winner in terms of providing buildings and attracting more teachers to remote schools across the country.
Inside each kit is a classroom and a teacher's house. It's basically a building in a box–a door, a wall, a window frame and a roof which can be put together quickly. And because it lays flat, the kit can be shipped and carried into communities only accessible by foot.
Funded by AusAID, the kits have been designed in PNG, using locally sourced sustainable timber. In terms of bang for the Australian taxpayer buck, they're bringing results and fast.
"Attracting teachers is half of the battle in getting more children into school," explained Stanley Oluwond, who works in AusAID's education team in Port Moresby. He said the inclusion of a teacher house was a vital part of the kit and directly helping to boost the country's primary enrolment rate.
"Teacher salaries are not great. Add to the job conditions a several kilometre trek through swamps and forests to get to work, poor electricity supply and dirt for a classroom floor," said Stanley. 'It makes attracting people to the profession hard."
"For these teachers, knowing at the end of the day they have four walls and a roof over their head can be the deal-clincher in recruitment," said Stanley. "Any extra incentive we can offer helps."
Stanley spent a week in remote villages in Milne Bay province, making sure the kits got to the right places and were constructed properly. He said the experience changed his view on Australia's role in his country's development.
"I am the first to admit there is sometimes a focus on what hasn't been done, but now I can see I have been underestimating the real difference we have already made in so many people's lives."
"In some communities they told me they felt like their soul had been restored. Teachers who were reluctant to travel to remote places were now enticed to stay. For the first time children who had lessons under a tree were now in a classroom."
Young children and elderly women jostled for positions among the wharf workers to bring the cargo off the boats. In places where there were no wharves like Keibogimogimo and Vidia, there was no other option but to moor the boat on a pile of mangroves.
At one of the more remote schools in the Bay, such as Pem Primary, the flat packs were unloaded in the middle of the sea onto a smaller dinghy, carried on top of people's shoulders across an inlet and onto a beach, before being carried up to their final destination.
Stanley said a memorable part of the experience was when whole villages literally stopped and came to the wharf when they heard 'the Aussies are arriving with our schools'.
"After I visited these provinces it really hit home how important our work is. I saw schools that were run down and lacking in facilities, now able to give more children the opportunity to grow and learn."
Across the country where the kits are being rolled out to 85 schools there are similar stories.
Along the remote Kokoda Track, timber is being sourced from local plantations and locals are being employed to transport the packs into the required locations.
"So along the chain everyone is benefitting from this aid," said Stanley.
"Like any father I want the best for my children and that includes them being able to go to school. I saw hope in so many parent's faces when we delivered the kits–it meant an education for their children. It meant a chance at a better way of life. Isn't this what every parent wants?"