PROJECT ‘OSTICO EAST TIMOR’
15 June 2011
Road trip to Baucau with Kirsty Sword Gusmao and Max Stahl
Travelling around East Timor with Kirsty Sword Gusmao and Max Stahl makes you feel like you’re hanging out with royalty. Kirsty is instantly recognised by everyone, but her attention is rivalled when people realise the man in the jeans and cap is Max Stahl, the journalist who filmed the Santa Cruz graveyard massacre, hid the tape in a hole next to a gravestone and after being interrogated by the Indonesians, went back in the dead of night to retrieve it and with the film maker Peter Gordon and Kirsty, distributed it around the world.
Max and Peter accompanied Kirsty and her and Xanana’s 3 boys to Maucale school where Spend it Well is constructing a new school building. They filmed a ceremony at the school and in various settings around Baucau, retracing the steps they all trod in the 1990s when they were clandestinely working to obtain independence for East Timor.
There was a wonderful ceremony at the school and it was fabulous to see the new building coming along so well.
       
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
12 June 2011
Back in Dili
I flew into Dili yesterday to be part of an extraordinary documentary making trip next week. The film maker and producer who, together with Kirsty Sword Gusmao, obtained the footage of the Santa Cruz Cementry massacre, smuggled it out of the country and distributed it world wide, are back in Timor. They are working together again to make a documentary following up on the leaders of the Timorese independence movement and are filming Kirsty on a road trip to Baucau to visit Maucale school where Spend it Well has a new school building under construction.
Walking along Dili’s seafront it is hard to believe we are only an hour from Darwin. Men push trolleys bearing corn cobs, babies balance precariously on the front of motorbikes and bamboo stalls sell hundreds of glorious looking (unrefridgerated) fish. The fruit stalls are stacked in displays that are more beautiful than anything in high end fruit shops in Australia and the children run around playing with empty water bottles on strings.
It’s always good to be here in such a beautiful place and to be reminded how hard it is to get things done, but also just by seeing the groups of young men standing around with no-where to go, how great the need for education is.
  
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
10 June 2011
Ostico School Kid Feeding Program
Spend it Well reps were recently at Ostico School – the first school we built in 2009. They were there for meetings with the villagers about providing more support to the villagers and the children with scholarships, supplemented school kid feeding programs, maternal health and more. One photo below shows the goverment feeding program which provides beans and rice to school children. Spend it Well is working to add a “murungai supplement” to this meal which will provide the children with nutrition they are so badly lacking. The other photo shows the extraordinary pride that the children and teachers have in their school – leaving their shoes lined up in the dustbowl which is currently their playground – more on our plans for the playground later….
 
project: OSTICO EAST TIMOR
31 March 2011
East Timorese children malnourisment shocking – UNICEF
A recent UNICEF report shows that for the 8th year, East Timor has the 3rd hightest percentage of chronically malnourished children in the world – with only Afganistan and Yemen being slightly higher.
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
11 January 2011
More Donated Furniture for Spend it Well Schools
To reduce deforestation, the East Timorese govt has put strict controls on the use of new wood. Rotary is helping to address the resulting shortage of school furniture (made of wood) by shipping used school furniture from Australia to East Timor.
Our school at Ostico was the beneficiary of some of this furniture last year. Now Rotary has provided Spend it Well with more furniture for Ostico, Lequeracabu’u and also the two new schools we plan to build this year at Maucale and Macalaco.
 
project: Lequeracabu'u East Timor, Macalaco East Timor, Maucale East Timor, OSTICO EAST TIMOR
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