Page 1455 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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While the struggle for independence has been won, it is clear that the job of building a sustainable future still lies ahead, as does the job of erecting the economic and social structures that will let the East Timorese implement their dreams. The ACT community, through the Canberra-Dili friendship agreement, will do what we can to walk with and support our Timorese friends on that journey. Beyond the confines of the friendship agreement, the ACT government has helped the East Timorese establish a Timor-Leste Embassy here in Canberra, which we did in 2003, and we will continue to provide interim accommodation to Timor-Leste until the new embassy is constructed, which at this stage it is hoped will be achieved by 2008.
For any community in any country, access to education is one of the prerequisites of a bright future, not just for individuals but for whole societies. The Canberra Friends of Dili, the ACT Department of Education and Training and the AEU are working together to support the education system in Dili—and where better to start than in schools. In November 2004 an officer of the Department of Education and Training took leave without pay to research the possibility of establishing a sports in schools program in Dili, on behalf of the Canberra Friends of Dili. AusAID has now approved the next intake of Australian youth ambassadors for development volunteers to run that program.
More recently, in July 2005, the friendship schools program was launched at Calwell high school, linking the school with 30 de Agosto high school in Dili, named for the 30 August 1999 vote for independence. In Tuggeranong, a high school consortium made up of Calwell, Caroline Chisholm, Kambah, Lanyon and Wanniassa high schools is making great progress. In February this year, the consortium met with a departmental representative and with my colleague Mr Gentleman to discuss the Dili friendship schools program and to work at enhancing and expanding it.
Immediate strategies agreed to at that meeting, as Mr Gentleman has indicated, included discussing opportunities for English language instruction with the ESL network, carrying out an audit of curriculum text books in cluster schools, considering opportunities to involve Tuggeranong community groups and organising a day-long workshop of the combined student representatives of Tuggeranong high schools. That workshop was held last Friday, involving 100 students, five teachers and the principals of the five participating schools. Indeed, Mr Gentleman and the East Timorese Ambassador, Mr Hernani Coelho, and the second secretary, Mr Gaspar, also participated in that workshop. I commend, once again, Mr Gentleman for his continued deep involvement in all aspects of our Dili relationship.
I am sure that the eyes of many of those present were opened by the stories related by the Canberra Friends of Dili representatives, who spoke of the traumas that still haunted many students in East Timor and of the difficult conditions under which many of them continued their schooling, with few of the basic resources taken for granted by students and teachers here in Australia. Mr Coelho spoke about family life in East Timor, the high percentage of young people in the population, the high number of East Timorese without any education and the determination of most young Timorese to enjoy the kind of education that will help East Timor take its rightful place in the international community.
From my own personal experience and the visit that I undertook to Dili in 2004 for the purpose of signing the Canberra-Dili friendship agreement, I can certainly attest to that. I
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