PROJECT ‘Lequeracabu’u East Timor’
23 May 2012
In Dili for East Timor’s 10th anniversary
It’s not every day you get to be part of a country’s 10th anniversary celebrations.
What was the most amazing part of it for me? Not the red, black and yellow flags and bunting festooned all around Dili. Not being at the same events as the Indonesian and Portugese Presidents – or spotting the Governor General in stylish pastel pink. The sight that will stay with me for a long time is that of thousands of people lining both sides of the road as they walked late at night to Tasi Tolu, the area on the outskirts of Dili where a ceremony was held at midnight on the eve of the anniversary. Over 100,000 people gathered around the stage, trying to catch a glimpse of the speeches on a few large screens and marvelling at the fireworks which concluded it. For such a young country, where memories of violence are still recent, the celebrations were of huge significance.
    
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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
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
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
01 February 2012
Search for our next school starts
I am definitely best left at home when the investigative trips are made to decide on our next school projects. The Ministry of Education gives us the schools at the top of its “most desperate” list from which we choose our projects. Put me in any of those schools and I’ll decide that we absolutely have to help them out. But it’s actually not that simple. Need is only the starting point – we have to identify a school with a co-operative and energetic community and also one where the money we spend will have a significant effect on the school and the kids. That’s where Agostinho Soares, our Timorese project manager (in the stripy shirt) comes in. He visits the sites, talks to the community and its leaders and the teachers. He also works with the builders to produce good pricing – and monitors work once it has started. That process is underway now – more info soon.
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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