A New Century for Timor Leste - A WOW! e-Brief

 

WORLD NEIGHBORS IN TIMOR LESTE

By Kylie McBride, WOW! summer intern

Photographs by Linda Jo Stern/World Neighbors

The communities that World Neighbors and its partners work with face serious challenges, such as lack of health services, poor roads, isolation, low quality soil, and limited access to clean water. World Neighbors currently works in Indonesia and the Philippines and has recently expanded to Timor Leste in order to help the East Timorese develop more effective, viable and legitimate forms of local organization that will succeed in creating long-term solutions to local problems.

In March 2007, Linda Jo Stern, associate vice president of community and reproductive health for World Neighbors, Paul Joicey, World Neighbors Southeast Asia area representative, and Nina Hernidiah, World Neighbors Indonesian program officer for community and reproductive health, visited the Oecusse region of Timor Leste in order to assess the site of World Neighbors newest program. The main purpose of the visit was to gain a deeper understanding of the communities’ situation, with an emphasis on access to food and nutrition, and to begin the process of identifying critical problems and brainstorming solutions with partners and staff.

The trip confirmed that the communities face high birth rates as well as high death rates among newborns and mothers. There are also large numbers of children who are malnourished and under average height. Additionally, it was observed that the people of Oecusse could rapidly improve the availability of nourishing food by adding more nutritious crops to their cultivation and employing some easy-to-implement agricultural methods that will increase production.

Donate Now!

World Neighbors recently received approximately $1 million from the Delegation of the European Commission to Indonesia, Brunei and Timor Leste to begin work in Timor Leste implementing a program focused on improving food availability. World Neighbors is partnering with local non-governmental organizations, each of which is working together with World Neighbors to plan and implement work in four communities in Oecusse. These local organizations know the people and communities they will partner with and provide the leadership and coordination at the community and district levels.

 

World Neighbors’ newest program in the Oecusse district focuses on improving access to the food supply and developing better food storage and food preparation methods in order to significantly improve the nutritional status and growth of the community, especially among children under the age of five. Oecusse, with a population of 58,521 people, is an isolated enclave located in West Timor, Indonesia. This region has high levels of poverty and food scarcity. Malnutrition is more evident in the dry uplands, where it is common to find that people do without sufficient food for three to five months of the year. In these periods of food shortage families cannot meet their needs for adequate calories, protein or other essential nutrients. This chronic hunger leads to stunted growth in babies and children (which can start before the baby is even born), problems with children’s cognitive development and greater susceptibility to infectious disease.

 

In response to the needs identified during the March 2007 visit, communities prioritized improving water management for consumption and irrigation, sanitation, nutrition and family planning. In addition to these goals World Neighbors is focusing on offering more opportunities for both men and women to earn income through a variety of possibilities, including improved agricultural production through agro-forestry, savings and credit programs, livestock raising, and the development of agri-business skills.

Donate Now!

World Neighbors is committed to working in partnership with organizations at the local level so that the people of Oecusse and the local organizations build their skills and improve their access to food by adopting and utilizing more productive, appropriate and ecologically sustainable agricultural and livestock raising practices. In addition, the community will work on groundwater management practices and polices and appropriate management of drinking water. The policies being put in place in Oecusse will improve the health status of children under five and women of reproductive age through improved health care access, health practices and nutrition. Improvements in water management and sanitation will also help reduce child and infant death rates by decreasing the occurrence of preventable diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

 

Several key components in eliminating gender-based discrimination are reducing the number of births per woman, lowering the number of deaths of infants and mothers and offering both women and men more opportunities to make contributions in determining their quality of life. Improved couple communication and expanded roles for women in decision making and in community life are also essential developments in improving the social position of women. To accomplish this, female literacy and employment in occupations that pay a living wage will also need to be increased.

 

The work World Neighbors is performing in Oecusse will not only benefit the entire population as a whole, but will also specifically improve the lives of women and children in Timor Leste by improving maternal and child nutrition, providing education on good hygiene practices and increasing skills needed for earning an income. Women who have a reliable support system in the community and confidence in their own skills will have access to more choices that will allow them, for example, to leave violent relationships or give up prostitution. As male community members see the benefits that they and the entire community gain by including women in decision making and valuing their contributions to the greater good, the first steps in social change that produce a more equitable environment can be taken.

Read more . . .

Donate Now!

 

Overview of the Situation of Women in Timor Leste

A Conversation with Paul Joicey

Learn More and Get Involved

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

July 2007

back