PROJECT ‘Macalaco East Timor’
27 August 2012
Amazing Youth Group goes to Macalaco School
Imagine 130 school children in a remote village in the mountains of East Timor having a music and dance based youth rights group from Dili arrive to perform for them. We were able to make that happen this week by co-operating with MAC an incredible organisation of young people from Dili. 15 of the MAC group travelled to remote Macalaco – doing the last stage with all their instruments (including drum kit, synthesiser and guitars) in a builder’s open backed truck. They performed songs for the children which dealt with things like children’s rights, nutrition and hygeine and interspersed the songs with short teaching sessions and a puppet show. There was also dancing and some capoeira (Brazilian based martial art combing dance and music) – everyone had a fabulous time.
The children (and adults) were transfixed. We hope to be able to take MAC to Macalaco again very soon.
     
project: Macalaco East Timor
31 May 2012
2nd Spend it Well Teacher Training Workshop
The 20 teachers from the 4 schools where Spend it Well works, have now attended their second 2 day training workshop. Lke the previous one, this workshop focused on how to teach numeracy, building on what the teachers learnt in the previous workshop. Once again bright and fabulous games feature in the teaching and were given to the teachers to take back to their schools. The feedback from the teachers has been fantastic.
     
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO 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
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
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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