About Maximus Tipagau

Maximus Tipagau was born in 1983 in the central highlands of Papua, to the Moni people, who live in a geographically isolated region. That remoteness made schools and health care hard to reach. Even so, his mother planted in him a dream about the importance of education, though it was never quite clear what goal she had in mind. His father, meanwhile, dreamed of him becoming a war leader, a gladiator like himself.

Before he was ten years old, Maximus tried to apply for work in Tembagapura, the Freeport area. Of course the security guards kept chasing him away. But through persistence, and a range of naive yet clever strategies, his efforts finally paid off. He got a job as a gardener in the residential compound of Freeport’s senior staff. Later he worked as a gardener at several houses occupied by Freeport executives, and became close to some of the company’s directors from the United States and Canada.

Despite his many connections, getting a job at Freeport itself was not easy, all the more so because he had not finished primary school. But he never gave up, and tried everything he could to work at Freeport.