PROJECT ‘Macalaco 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
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
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
25 January 2012
The gardens are growing
On my visits to the schools I always wish that we could get some fresh vegetables to the kids – for much of the year their diet consists only of rice and casava (a root vegetable). At the end of last year, $500 was given to each of Maucale, Macalaco, Festau and Ostico schools to start a community garden, from which to feed the school children. The idea is that if they are successful we’ll provide the funds to expand the gardens. Maucale and Ostico’s gardens are already planted and looking great – hoping the other schools to start shortly.
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
|
