Costs shut "Gate" for Pathfinders?

ast-minute visa requirements are causing Pathfinder clubs from the Pacific islands to face increasing difficulties in meeting the costs to attend the South Pacific Pathfinder Camporee at the Stuarts Point Campground, New South Wales, early next year.
The Australian High Commission in Papua New Guinea has recently asked that every Pathfinder planning to attend the camporee go through a full medical examination and chest x-ray, in order to be granted visas to enter Australia in January. This requirement was not brought to their attention at the time the applications were lodged.
“We have kids who have to walk for miles to go to an urban township just to fulfil all these new requirements,” says Pastor Geoffrey Pomaleu, director of youth ministries for the Papua New Guinea Union Mission.
“Others have to travel more than 320 kilometres to Lae or Port Moresby to go to a medical practitioner recognised by the Australian High Commission for their examinations.”
Pathfinder clubs are required to pay a participation fee to help with the running cost of the camporee. Clubs arriving from the Pacific islands also have to pay for airfares and transportation, costs that are causing some to withdraw their attendance.
Pathfinders from Kiribati or Tuvalu will not be attending the camporee because of financial constraints.
In an attempt to assist these clubs, the youth ministries department for the South Pacific Division, organisers of the camporee, have called on Australian clubs to adopt sister clubs from the Pacific Islands.
Other Pathfinder clubs facing difficulties raising funds to attend the camporee include those from Solomon Islands, Tonga, Malaita and most recently, Vanuatu.
Some 6500 Pathfinders from 300 Pathfinder clubs representing 16 different countries are expected at the Camporee, themed “The Twelfth Gate.”—Melody Tan