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The project started off at a meeting of the people involved in the Child Labour Project when Mr Carter showed us an E-Mail he had received from an orphanage in East Timor called Sister Lourdes soon after the independence vote had been conducted and the violence that followed. The E-Mail contained a list of the things that they needed for the children etc. These were the things they needed.
One-time requirements:
4WD vehicle - This is the primary expensive need and is required to reach most of the buildings. Currently Lourdes relies on the assistance of local priests to deliver food and supplies.
An adequate water tank at Dare - the current tank would not provide water for a Western family of 4;
New electrical generator - the current model is unreliable.
Solar Electrical supply
Drip irrigation system for gardens - water is very precious
Water Pump to capture the water from supply below the main building
On-going funding for:
Food, clothing, beds, and so on
Fuel (for generators and for a vehicle when they have one)
Books and school supplies
Supplies to maintain the facilities (water pipe, lumber, wire, and so on)
Tools (for maintenance, gardening, etc)
We decided we could help out with the books and school supplies. We started thinking of ideas of how to raise funds so we could buy equipment to send over there. Some of our ideas were to have an out-of-uniform day at school where the students pay 50c to come to school out of uniform, a sausage sizzle and a movie screening for Bairnsdale West Primary School students. We started organising these things and we also placed collection boxes at the offices of both campuses of the secondary college so students, staff and the public could donate new and used stationary equipment to us to give to the East Timorese. We got a very satisfactory result from the collection boxes with lots of equipment being donated. On a lovely day last year (1999) we had our sausage sizzle we had a great response from the students and raised lots of money. In cooperation with the Student Representative Council (S.R.C.) we had our out-of-uniform day which also was very successful. Soon after we went to Bairnsdale Office Supplies to purchase stationary items to send to East Timor. After we had purchased them we added the donated items to them and placed them in mailing boxes. We then waited until Peter O'Dea convened the aid truck through Bairnsdale to load them on. We did that early this year and they are now at the orphanage. Organising is still continuing on the movie screening. Round one of our fundraising is now successfully completed with round two just about to begin.
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