Spend It Well

07 August 2013

Timor Rain Clouds have an Architect Silver Lining

We’ve been waiting for the last 2 months for the rains to ease enough for our builder to get his trucks loaded with building supplies up to Ossoluga village. Normally the wet season would have ended by June, but it is still raining. This means the dirt track to Ossoluga is impassable.

But the delay has allowed our fabulous pro-bono architect Richard Briggs to spend time with the builder and revise the plans to increase the quality and utility of the school within the existing budget. He’s done things like teach the builder the best way to use the site and orient the building, removed the ceiling and added insulation to increase light and ventilation, increased the verandah size and added some panels in the roofing to allow natural light through.

So when this building is built (we’re poised to go as soon as rain breaks) it will be a vastly better structure which will last longer and is a much more pleasant place to learn in.

project: Ossoluga

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22 June 2013

When we say we work in “remote schools” we’re not joking!

This year’s extra long and wet rainy season has made it hard to get into the remote villages in Timor where Spend it Well works.

Agostinho took this 15 second video on a recent trip. This river was just one of several they had to cross. They did get to Baguio – the first car to do so since the wet season.

Trip to Baguio

project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Lospalos East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR

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06 June 2013

The Best Part of a School Project

One of my favourite parts of a Spend it Well school project takes place long before the first sod is turned. Once we decide to build a new school, I take the first photos I have from that school and label them all “Before”. There’s something pretty amazing about knowing that within a few months, those appalling photos of a broken down shack of a school will be followed by “After” photos of a school building fit for a proper education.

The good news is that my photos of Ossolugo school have now been appropriately labelled and we are about to start our project there. Ossolugo school is a secondary school where the children from Macalaco and Festau schools (which we built over the last few years) go when they graduate. But at the moment the school is little more than a shack with dirt floors and is totally unusable during the wet season – this means many children have to board in Baucau often in very bad circumstances, and others simply don’t go to school at all. We have finalised a contract to build a 4 room (3 classrooms and a teacher’s room) semi-permanent building at Ossolugo school for US$39,000. We’re hopeful of starting the work very soon and having it finished within the short window before the wet season makes the village inaccessible again.

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30 May 2013

Macuale School’s Rockstars

We arranged for the fabulous MAC youth group from Dili to visit Maucale – one of our remote schools. MAC is a dynamic bunch of teenagers who took their electric guitars, keyboard and drums to the remote Maucale village. They performed for the children at the school, but they do more than just entertain. All of their songs are based around teaching things like children’s rights, hygeine and nutrition – information children in remote places often just don’t receive. The kids loved it and had a great rapport with the MAC team as you can see from the photos.

project: mau, Maucale East Timor

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13 March 2013

RC Melbourne Funds a Year of Teacher Training

I’m delighted to announce that the fabulous people at Rotary Club of Melbourne are funding a series of two day workshops for teachers from our schools over the next year. Many Timorese teachers have little or no training, so this will have a massive impact on the quality of their teaching. The sessions we conducted last year were a great success and this funding allows us to build on that work. RC Melbourne’s funding also pays for bright educational games and resources for each teacher to take back into the classrooms. 2013’s workshops will start soon!