Spend It Well

31 January 2013

$700 donation doubles school garden and buys chickens

A $700 donation from an Australian family has meant Macalaco School can expand it’s fabulous school garden from 1 to 2 hectares. It’s also paid for chickens to be used to produce eggs for the school kids. This garden is highly prized by the village – how happy does the school director look to receive the money?

project: Macalaco East Timor

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09 January 2013

Read about us in Dare Magazine

Dare Magazine did a feature article on us last year – you can read it at

http://www.dareoutloud.com/restoring-education-in-east-timor/

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

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28 November 2012

Festau School has new toilets

Festau School’s two new toilets, funded by Rotary Port Melbourne, are now finished. The toilets are water free and the structure was designed to blend in with its surroundings with bamboo planking covering the aluminium walls and local rocks covering the cement base. Spend it Well will now work with the community to teach the children how to use the toilets and wash their hands. We’re hoping to get the fabulous MAC youth group from Dili to Festau school in the next few weeks and part of their educational performance will focus on the healthy use of the toilets. Our thanks to Rotary Port Melbourne for making this project possible.

project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor

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08 September 2012

Rotary Port Melbourne building toilets at Festau School

There are no toilets at Festau School – or elsewhere in the village. That’s about to change as Rotary Port Melbourne has funded the $2,000 necessary to build two water free toilets for the 60 school students. The contract has been signed and the area was pegged out when we visited the school. We are hoping these toilets can become prototypes for schools at all schools where we work.

project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor

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01 September 2012

Fabulous Macalaco Garden

Hi, I’m Zoe Webb and I am 12. A couple of weeks ago I visited East Timor for the first time. One of my favourite times of my trip was visiting the Macalaco gardens. Spend It Well gave the school $500 dollars to make a garden for the kids and the community (as well as building them a school). When they told me about the garden I was expecting few banana trees and nothing special but what was there completely blew me away! There were rows and rows of cabbages, banana trees, pineapples, spring onions, bok choy and lots of other veggies. What was most surprising (and amazing) was that these people grow better produce than we do, in rock hard ground. What Spend It Well and the Macalaco community have done will feed most of the village, and give them something different to eat for a change.