10 May 2012
New uniforms for kids at Macalaco School
At last year’s opening ceremony for the classrooms we built at Macalaco School, I felt sad to see how old the kid’s school uniforms were. Obviously washed with care by their mothers, they were spotlessly clean but the white shirts looked old and grey and many kids were wearing non-uniform shorts or skirts.
In a great example of how far money can go in East Timor, Spend it Well just bought 3 shirts and 2 skirts or shorts for each of the 100 children – for a grand total of $1,100 (about the price to outfit one Aussie child at a private school). Carefully packaged by Agostinho for each child, they were presented to the children recently. I love the photos (the little boy did get a better sized shirt!)
     
cheap Confido
project: Macalaco East Timor
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15 March 2012
Teaching the teachers
It’s my hope that the last 2 days were the beginning of a transformation of teaching at the 4 schools where Spend it Well is working.
Spend it Well funded a 2 day workshop for 16 teachers (4 from each school) many of whom have received little or no training before. The workshop was run by the Mary McKillop Institute and focused on basic numeracy. It was taught using games, singing and dancing – with an educational game provided to take back to the classroom for each lesson. Each teacher was given a kit with notes, bright wall charts, games like dominos and “crocodiles” and ladders, blocks and music CDs. Apparently the teachers were playing the games themselves at night!
This sounds pretty basic in Western countries but for somewhere like Timor this training is revolutionary and incredibly exciting. As well as providing the buildings for kids to learn in – we’re now able to help improve the quality of their education. Total cost of the 2 day workshop including the course, all materials, accomodation and travel costs for 16 teachers was $2,200. Feels like money very well spent!
We’ll be visiting the schools in the next couple of weeks to deliver some more basic resources like pens and cardboard and to see the progress. Our aim is to run 5 more such workshops for the teachers over the next year.
        
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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06 March 2012
Training for 16 of our teachers
We believe that building schools for kids is essential, but not enough by itself. Many teachers in Timor haven’t had the chance of proper training and this is something we’ve been wanting to help with. Finally after lots of work from Jenny Coles, we’ve arranged for 4 teachers from each of our schools to attend a great 2 day workshop next week. The sessions will focus on teaching numeracy and literacy, with each school taking away lesson plans and 4 sets of beautiful bright wall charts and teaching games. For schools with bare walls and little more than paper and pens this will be an amazing addition. Photos of the sessions to follow next week – the one below is one I love from Ostico school.
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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28 February 2012
Macalaco’s garden is off the mark
At the risk of boring you all, here are photos of more plants! These photos make me really happy because they show just what the villagers are able to do if they’re given the opportunity. Macalaco School has now joined Ostico and Maucale Schools in planting their school gardens with the $500 funding we gave them. Rather than provide the seeds and equipment, we allowed the villagers to decide how and what to spend the money on. Maclaco has planted corn, peanut, sweet potato and banana. It’s not much money, but to see fresh vegetables being grown, where previously there were none is a fantastic result. Spend it Well will keep funding these gardens if they are successful.
  
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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16 February 2012
Macalaco School in Action
While Macalaco’s new school building looked great at the opening ceremony, I always love seeing new classrooms actually being used by the kids. Agostinho visited all 4 Spend it Well schools last week and sent through some great photos from Macalaco of the kids in their new classrooms, using their new blackboards and sitting at their new desks!
  
project: Macalaco East Timor
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