Page 3629 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 28 October 2014
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successful in achieving its aim of building the sanitation blocks and the activities centre. Fundraising efforts in the centenary year ended up also supporting the boundless playground.
The dollars for Dili project highlights that upgrades to basic facilities like toilets at school, which can often be taken for granted, make a huge difference in the standard of living of local communities, and in Dili will encourage more girls to attend school and gain access to education. The previous lack of sanitation facilities in the schools of Timor-Leste were resulting in lower attendances, especially among girls and young women. Anecdotally, the improved facilities have already led to increased number of girls attending school.
Scouting is the world’s largest youth development organisation and is widely recognised for its programs. The new national activities centre for scouting in Timor-Leste will build confidence, self-esteem and resilience among Dili’s young people, and also develop their leadership and teamwork capabilities. The opening of the national activities centre was the culmination of months of hard work by International Scouting, the scout association of Timor-Leste and members of the centenary of Canberra team in the ACT. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in delivering the dollars for Dili project.
A number of ACT schools contributed significantly to dollars for Dili. In particular, Narrabundah College and Hughes Primary School raised in excess of $5,000 each. Cockington Green held a special fundraising day where all profits were donated to dollars for Dili. This raised more than $5,000.
It was with great pleasure that I was able to visit Dili and to see Canberra dollars for Dili at work at the end of September this year. The brief trip included a visit to and official opening of the activities centre with the President of the national parliament of Timor-Leste in Metinaro, just outside the capital, Dili.
The scouts activities centre was built through a partnership between the Canberra community and Scouts Australia. The activities centre has already become a central hub of the community and will provide thousands of children with a place to come together and learn. It will be a base for all scouting activity and leadership training in Timor-Leste and a useful resource for kindred organisations.
As a member of the first Canberra scout group at St John’s church, Reid, I recalled to the crowd there how I had earned several merit badges and still remember how to tie a clove hitch, and that map reading and navigation training have been well utilised in my more recent years as a rally navigator. So I was very proud, on 26 September, to be made an honorary scout and to open the centre on behalf of Canberrans.
I was also really grateful to be able to see the difference that the donations made by the Canberra community have made on the lives of girls attending Aimutin and Fatuhada schools, with the construction of health and sanitation blocks. We visited Aimutin Primary School with the scouts and saw the sanitation block which serves a school of 1,119 students and 25 teachers. Prior to the block being built, the school operated with three toilets for children and one for teachers.
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