Timor-Leste: Empowering women - promoting development
The lives of girls and women in Timor-Leste are often characterised by oppression, social exclusion and dependence on male family members.
With your donation, they can shape their lives according to their own ideas and receive educational opportunities.
- Asia
Strengthen your personality
If you haven't learnt to use your voice and assert yourself, even the best degree won't help you get a job. It is therefore essential that women are not only supported professionally, but also strengthened in their personality. The Seraphine Foundation team, which runs a training centre in Lospalos, is focusing on this. Floriana also attends school here. She comes from a small village in the mountains in the east of Timor-Leste, without running water or electricity. For most young women here, life is characterised by agriculture.
For Floriana, the course at the Seraphine Foundation is the first step towards modernity. Her big dream is to work in an office one day. In addition to cooking and tailoring, she is also learning how to use a PC. Learning English is a particular challenge. This is because speaking in front of others is practised at the same time. Particular attention is paid to body language, eye contact, using the microphone and other techniques. A challenge that many of them take up with great enthusiasm. The young women recognise this: You grow with your tasks and often surpass yourself!
Women on the road to self-employment
Like Floriana, Cecilia is already making plans for the future. After the CTID training course to become a seamstress, CTID will continue to support her. She has the opportunity to obtain loans to set up a small business. Cecilia has also set herself the goal of setting up a small tailoring business in which she would like to produce handbags and sewing work in particular. The community with the other 50 or so participants encourages her: "We motivate each other. When we are tired and exhausted, we spur each other on "You can do it!"
Education means protection
Learning something, perfecting a skill is one thing. But what the work of our partners triggers in the girls and women is much more. Many women are very introverted and shy at the beginning of the course. They are often afraid and lack self-confidence. Women are often second-class citizens in their villages. This often manifests itself in domestic violence. Leopoldina suffered years of domestic violence. She did not have the strength to break away from her husband. Partly because she didn't want to deprive her children of their father, but also because she was financially dependent. She finally found refuge with her five children in a women's shelter run by FOKUPERS in the capital Dili. Here she is able to find peace and Leopoldina has plucked up the courage to denounce her husband. The therapy programmes help her to develop a new perspective on life.
A society in transition
The experiences of Floriana, Cecilia and Leopoldina show how important it is to specifically promote and support women. Investing in their future not only gives them a chance to lead a self-determined life, it also protects them from dependency and a life in the shadow of their fathers and husbands.
The families are often impressed by how stronger their daughters come back from the courses. They prove that they are good wives, mothers and daughters, but also that they can provide for their families. For many families, this was previously an insurmountable contradiction. In this role model function, women like Floriana, Cecilia and Leopoldina make an important contribution to the Timorese society.
This is what our joint success looks like
- 16 graduates founded a small company or group of companies last year
- around 60 women and men completed a course
- 47 students attended summer school courses
To ensure that your donation has an impact in the long term, Misereor uses a small proportion for important administration an related tasks. This way, we make sure that projects are selected carefully and implemented responsibly and that their effects are regularly monitored. Should it not be possible to use your donation as planned, we will use it where it is currently needed most.
Our local partner organisations
Fokupers
Fokupers - The Communication Forum for East Timorese Women has been active as a communication network for women in Timor-Leste since 1997. The organisation works in the field of lobbying and advocacy on women's rights issues and offers concrete help for women and their children who have experienced domestic or sexual violence.
CTID
The Centro Treino Integral e Desenvolvimento Colegio (CTID) in Baucau trains young women from rural areas who are unable to afford secondary school or vocational training. In twelve-month courses, they are qualified for management tasks and entrepreneurial activities in rural areas. The organisation also offers training in hotel and restaurant management.
Seraphine Foundation
The Seraphine Foundation runs a training centre in Lospalos. Vocational training for young adults, especially young women, is essential for ensuring the peaceful, democratic development of the country. The girls and young women who take part in the various courses are either school dropouts or have never been to school.
Miriam Thiel
Donor Communications
- Telephone
- +49 241 442506
- miriam.thiel@misereor.de
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