Below are some recent photos which show the children about to plant tomatoes. This will help to feed the children as well as teaching them basic gardening skills and encourage them in self sufficiency and self confidence.

Recently the children harvested enough corn on the land at Encouragement House to feed them for three months.  Corn is a staple food in Timor and we found this to be very exciting.

The enclosed photo shows the foundations for the new building, Koala, while Kangaroo, in orange, is in the background. Koala will be a duplicate of Kangaroo and will provide accommodation for the next 40 children. So we will then have 80 children receiving a high school education. When Koala is ready for occupancy in September this year, we will be able to have one block for girls and one for boys.

You can also see in the center of the photo, the water well. Good quality water was struck at 13 metres depth.

After Easter the children returned from their first school holiday since the start of the school year. I imagine there may have been a few tears on their arrival home. Probably some more tears when it was time to go back to school as well. Deo arranged for a truck to take the children to and from the villages. That would have been a great photo but it is scary thinking of it on those horrible roads.

You will be delighted to know that the children have harvested their first crop of corn grown on EH land.  Deo says there is enough corn to last them 3 months. The kids have other crops growing around the houses too. They have sweet potato, cassava, beans and other veggies. They also have easy access to coconuts, pawpaw and mango later on in the year.

Deo recently bought 10 bags of rice that he says will last 3 months. A bag of rice weighs 35kgs and costs $15. Maliana is the main rice producing area in Timor.

Friends in Mornington, Victoria purchased some guitars for the kids. Deo and two of his musical friends, (who have their own band) are volunteer music teachers at EH. So we can close this newsletter on a musical note J

A BRIEF REPORT

• We received 134 applications for the 40 first stage places available for 2010 year.
• The first hostel has been named Kangaroo.
• It takes 4 hours driving time in a 4 x 4 to travel the 37 kilometres between Maliana, where the hostel is situated and Lolotoe, the district of 7 villages where the children live.
• The opening ceremony was attended by the District Administrator, Maliana, the Sub District Administrator, Lolotoe, reps from the UN, the police chief and importantly the District and Regional Education Director
• The land for the hostel for the junior high school cost US$3,700
• The hostel building, Kangaroo and the 2 supervising parent houses cost almost US$48,000
• Stage 2, the building of Koala, the next hostel will commence in April 2010 and should cost about US$50K with a couple of small changes we have made.
• The Aussie $ is presently helpful to us changing into US $s. We would appreciate any donation you are considering to be quicker than later as we can hold the US$ at ANZ Dili. Who knows with money exchange timing anyway.

A MORE DETAILED REPORT

On Saturday 14 September last, Deo met us at the airport in Dili and we drove the 140 kms to Maliana in the usual 4 hours. This included a tucker stop at the Lois River where we ate the usual rice, fish and chook for $1 per head. The café toilet trip
included a slip-slide down an embankment using wooden steps on a tree branch,
crossing the yard through chooks, pigs, goats and children playing. The toilet is the
usual type. Take hand swipes in your back-pack.

In Maliana we were welcomed by Deo’s wonderful, happy family. We were given the honour of sleeping in the new house parent house and this suited us just to have the experience living at the hostel. Tina, Deo’s mother and his sister Lota cooked for everyone in the new hostel kitchen.

We toured the local area and could see just how difficult it is for children from local village communities to get to school. Some of them walk as much as 10 kms each way, every school day. Our hostel provides accommodation for the children from the Lolotoe district. The closest village is 37 kms away from Maliana. The truck between Maliana and Lolotoe takes over 4 hours to travel that distance and costs $6 per person, an impossible cost for most people.

On Tuesday Deo and I checked all the construction costs for the building. Every
receipt for every purchase has been filed and properly accounted for and recorded. I feel very satisfied that the building costs are accurate and honest.

Ben Kildea and his wife Sally Johnson are wonderful resident volunteers from
Australia who live at Maliana hospital. Sally is a midwife and teaches her profession at Maliana and the isolated communities such as Lolotoe. Ben is a civil engineer doing splendid work around the country. Ben has had constant contact with the hostel during the construction period. He told me that a new building about half as big again as our hostel cost US$80,000 and the building quality was inferior to the hostel. This is great news. The District Administrator told Deo he should tender on future government building projects as he was very impressed with the price and building construction.

The opening ceremony for the hostel was on Wednesday as reported above. The priest blessed the building and after the official ceremony we enjoyed excellent food of rice, chook and salad. Dessert of crème caramel followed.

Deo , Liz and I drove off to Lolotoe district in the afternoon. We covered the 37 kms to Gildapil, Deo’s home village in the stated 4 hours. The roads are quite perilous. Passing is nearly impossible, but luckily there are hardly any vehicles. It may require some 50 or 100 metres of backing up to find a place to slip into while the other truck passes. We are talking about serious cliff edge driving. A great place to hold the Tour De Timor mountain bike race next time.

The people of Gildapil usually walk to Maliana as they can skirt one mountain through a pass and save the $6 fare. I’m told they set out at midnight and reach the market at Maliana for the morning sale of their coffee or exchange for rice, which is grown in Maliana. All these experiences hammer into my head just how much our hostel is needed.

Please feel free to contact me anytime
Email: robliz@ourtelco.com.au
Home: 07 5493 2253
Mobile: 0408 708 161
Interested in a holiday in East Timor?

Anyone wishing to visit please feel free to phone or email me so we can help you with your trip planning!!

There is a great place to dive from the island of Atauro just off Dili, the capital city. There is a small resort owned and managed byan Aussie and his ET wife. Adequate accommodation is only about US$30 per night and probably includes food. Who cares at that price? The water is known for its clarity.

Up country is full of interesting things. There is accommodation at your own hostel at Maliana until the children move in on 2 January 2010. After that date, we can always pitch a tent at the hostel or stay at the hotel for $20 per night including breakfast.

Qantas Frequent Flyers take you from Brisbane to Dili if you are a member and have the points available.

Thank you for your support, Robert.

The school hostel is now a reality and will be ready for the first 40 children to move in by the start of the school year 2010.

The photos show the hostel with the roof going on. The small building to the right of the hostel is where the house parents will live. They will move in to their house in September this year and will be busy establishing the gardens and readying the hostel for the children.

Liz and I are using our Qantas frequent flier points for another trip to catch up with Deo and to check the progress of the projectin East Timor.

This will be an important visit as we will be planning future stages, amongst other things. We will have more photos to share with you then.

By the way, if you would like more information about Encouragement House or anything else to do with the project please email me at any time.

A number of people have expressed a possible interest in projects associated with the hostel and the children.

While it is a little too early for this at present we will keep you informed if you would like to register an interest.

On another note and in terms of the overall mission of The Encouragement Foundation we would like to acknowledge Deo’s parents Benjamin and Tina. They are great examples of real encouragers.

Their encouragement through education has now given all their children a path out of the poverty they may have suffered as farm hands in their remote rural village in the highlands of East Timor.

Their son, Deo, aged 28, has a booming future in East Timor and is devoting his life to charitable works and of course is very much involved with Encouragement House.

Florenzo, aged 26, is working for World Vision.

Mery, aged 21, is working for the Mary Stopes Foundation.

Lota, aged 19, is a full time student at uni learning tourism.

Deo, Florenzo and Mery all contribute financially to ensure Lota
completes her degree.

We all hope that Encouragement House will bring these opportunities to many more young Timorese people.

Deo reported yesterday by SMS that the brick walls are now going up and that the roof would be on by the end of May.

So in August this year, 40 children from the very remote area of Lolotoe will move into the hostel to start their first year of high school. Your encouragement has given these kids an opportunity, which would almost certainly have been denied them.

We have seen first hand the difficulties encountered by the isolation and the lengths children will go to gain an education. We watched as every morning and again in the afternoon, streams of school kids, (and some teachers), all in their bright school uniforms, walked from their villages close to Maliana to and from school. Some of the villages are 10 kilometres away.

Deo told us that some of the children arrive home in the pitch dark at 7pm. There are no street lights in their little villages. But they are so motivated because they know that education is their way to a good future

Each of you wonderful ‘encouragers’ can have as little or as much of this project as you want. The children and their families would be ecstatic to have personal contact with you. We would welcome your ideas and thoughts as well.

Sincerely,

Robert.

He wants more opportunity for the children of his district, most of whom face a future of subsistence farming and child-rearing like their parents.

Without access to secondary education, the children of Lolotoe have very little chance of ever breaking the cycle, attaining an income or even reaching above the poverty line.

At the moment, children who are privileged enough to carry on with their schooling, must relocate to the district capital of Maliana in order to attend high school.

Some stay with relatives but most don’t have that opportunity and those that do are often obliged to work in exchange for the accommodation, which can interfere with their education.

Deo’s dream is to create another option, to build a hostel in Maliana where the children of Lolotoe can live while they attend high school.

Deo’s hostel will provide new and exceptional accommodation (by East Timor standards) for children from the seven remote villages in the Lolotoe district.

An initial intake of 40 students will be selected based on their academic achievement in primary school.

The top 20 boys and top 20 girls will be offered hostel accommodation, a factor that will no doubt be particularly appreciated by the girls as they are usually completely denied further education.

The children will be provided with food, uniforms and educational supplies and they will be cared for by an experienced, live-in, husband and wife team who will reside within the hostel complex as house parents.

It is hoped that when these children graduate from high school in six years, they will be empowered by this opportunity and will go on to achieve great things for themselves and their country.

We welcome you to follow Deo’s journey. To participate where possible and to share this site with others.