International Relations
New Projects
The Centro Communidade Covalima (CCC) has been assisting to develop small targeted and sustainable projects with partners in Covalima. The CCC assists groups to implement and monitor the projects.
Renewable Energy for Community Programs
In 2006, Friends of Suai, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Balwyn, Oxfam Australia and the Municipal Council of Kiama, supplied a number of solar panels to Covalima.
Volunteers from the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) installed them at the community centre, youth centre, community radio station and a health centre in the mountains. More crucially, they trained local technicians to do the work.
Now solar panels sit atop 16 health centres throughout Covalima. Providing reliable and free power day and night, they make possible fridges for vaccines, minor surgery, and safer birth deliveries.
The infant mortality rate is still unacceptably high – 66.7 deaths per 1000 live births. Solar power also makes work – and life – just a little bit easier for Cuban doctors, the backbone of East Timor’s rural medical system.
From little things big things grow
East Timor’s economy is 80% agriculture and it struggles to produce sufficient food for its people. Most families in Covalima are engaged in subsistence farming, using hand tools to weed and buffalo to plough.
Seeds are in short supply but local NGOs and farmers are cautious about the introduction of genetically modified seeds, fearing they will undermine sustainability.
Over the past ten years droughts, floods, and insect plagues have devastated crops with indiscriminate tree felling adding to erosion.
After floods and landslides removed topsoil in 2005, villagers in the Covalima district appealed for help. With funds from Friends of Suai, a plant nursery with 10,000 seedlings was established the next year.
A great success, the nursery distributed 6000 seedlings to the Lela village reforestation project and another 4000 to other outlying villages.
The project employed ten in the nursery and another ten to terrace the fields. Terracing helps stem erosion.
Permaculture taking root
In 2008, Veg Out Community Garden in St Kilda donated $2,000 to the Akar Laran Agricultural High School on the edge of Suai to establish a garden on permaculture principles. Before 1999, the school taught around 1000 students and has recently reopened with 500 enrolled. The reopening of the agricultural high school offers the next generation of farmers vital skills, knowledge and practical experience.
The tools and seeds enabled Year 10 students to grow long beans which also supplemented their still meagre diets. The new techniques have been welcomed.
Local NGO Hadomi Malu is embracing other new farming methods for increasing productivity. Increased production is crucial. The return of people forcibly moved to West Timor in 1999 and the booming birth rate have boosted the population of Suai to 25,000, more than double its estimated population in 2002. The district as a whole is home to 70,000.
