David Hall and Jose have been busy with a range of projects and negotiations for community development. The most visible result is the number of rainwater tanks that have been installed to evaluate and demonstrate this option to improve the quality and availability of water.

Water and sanitation problems have been discussed with the relevant government department, AusAid and various NGOs. David is hopeful of making further progress on water and sanitation problems which are a serious health issue in some villages and detracts from the quality of life throughout the whole area.

David has been busy recently implementing a better salary payment system for teachers and setting up technical and other scholarships for students. This is seen as an effective way of providing the district with the skills needed for economic development.

Other project proposals are being developed for negotiation with the government early in 2008 when the new government expenditure guidelines are established.

Preparatory work has been undertaken for the construction of a new community health building at Atabae. David and Jose have also been providing support to Margaret and the other team members working on the community health programs.

Its good news for Atabae community health this month. At last Margaret Hall has been granted her Ministry of Health registration. This month she will be meeting the Vice Minister for Health to discuss the community health service that she is establishing in Atabae subdistrict. The community health philosophy is to proactively bring good health to communities rather than just reactively treat sick people.

The site for the new community health building is being prepared and building materials are being purchased. The youth group have volunteered to help lay the foundations and building plans are being finalised.

Through the cooperation of Fr John and others including the District Administrator, Sidonio Fontes, temporary accommodation has been arranged to ensure the continued operation of the community health service while the new building is being built.

Looking back over the past year, Margaret and her helpers have made great progress despite the disruptions and difficulties encountered. There are now more volunteers joining Margaret's health team and plans are afoot to expand operations in other villages next year.

The priority has been to focus on the health of mothers and their young babies and school children during the last year but the health checks will extend to the general adult population next year.

This proactive model for health care is new to East Timor but is being very well received in Atabae and generating calls for assistance to help introduce the concepts in other districts. Margaret and her team have already done some training of workers and health screening in other districts.

Dave and Jose have also had their successes with their projects which we will report on next month.

Margaret Hall has identified a number of women and children in the area with special needs due to malnutrition and various other ailments. These are mainly mothers with new born babies, particularly those involving multiple births and children with special needs. Some mothers literally have no money for food for themselves. Their health is poor and in the case of multiple births just do not have enough breast milk to support two infants.

Margaret reports,"At the moment we have two such mothers with twins. In both cases one baby is favoured over the other. The mothers always present nursing the stronger baby and a relative holding the weaker. If they are helped with formula feeds to compliment the breast feeds the stronger baby gets the breast and the weaker a very diluted bottle feed." We are sure that this is a case of 'I can't support two but one stronger baby is better than none'.

Margaret and her team have been trying to educate the mothers about the importance of both babies receiving breast milk for immunity and good nutrition. Unfortunately the mothers cannot afford the cost for both babies to have the number of formula feeds at the quality that is needed and to buy sufficient food for themselves. The special needs children would benefit from food supplements and vitamins. These are not 'run of the mill' failure to thrive cases, but children of parents who literally have nothing and the children have the added burden of other problems.

Margaret says,"We need emergency help for now situations. We need to get the mothers and infants strong now and then hopefully get them into general help programmes." The FPET Committee are pleased to report that students at Brisbane's Loreto Convent have contributed money they recently raised at their school to establish a fund to provide this emergency assistance.

Congratulations to Major Michael Stone

This month we must congratulate Major Michael Stone on his secondment as a military affairs adviser to the East Timor President, Jose Ramos Horta. Being a son of one of our founders, Deacon Gary Stone, Michael is a significant friend and active supporter of our organisation, .

Michael has had substantial experience in East Timor, speaks the local Tetun language fluently and has been able to help us in many ways. We wish him well in this new and vital role in helping East Timor build its future. Further details are available from the Canberra Times.

The Halls have spent a month in Dili gathering valuable information on what services are offered by which organisations. This includes government departments, non-government organisations and voluntary groups. David and Margaret are pleased to report that they found living in a suburb of Dili very peaceful. The disturbances reported in the media mostly occur in a few prominent locations and have little impact in other areas. The people are very positive and much work is being done to restore buildings and roads. The people in the area where the Halls were staying were very supportive and friendly and gave David and Margaret a very different perspective of Dili.

The HemoCue blood analyser system and the audiometer which the Halls had selected while in Australia were released from customs on 17 August. Since then both items have been put to good use. There is a particular problem with malnourished mothers who have twins. Francelina is one such mother who came to the clinic with seven week old twins a week before the HemoCue arrived. As an interim measure she was given iron tablets but she was not prepared to go to Maliana or Dili for proper treatment because she did not want to leave her other children. She was then the first patient tested with the HemoCue. Her Hb was 4.7 (normal 14-16), heart rate was 120 and blood pressure was very low. As a result of the testing, the Halls managed to persuade her to go to the Bairo Pite Clinic in Dili for 9 days of treatment. She is now a much healthier woman. She probably would have died along with her babies without this treatment. The seriousness of her condition was only evident because of the HemoCue test and this demonstrated the value of this equipment for local health care. A single test costs just over one dollar.

Work with the audiometer will commence this month in three local schools and also over on Atauro Island to complete the hearing assessments started previously.

Adalino is a 4 ˝ years old who cannot walk and was thought to be deaf and mute but he is responding well to therapy provided by the health care team. He said his first word on Friday (diak) and his legs are getting stronger. Margaret's goal is for him to walk and she now believes that his hearing is OK. However, she will test this when the audiometer is delivered.

Eduardo who six months ago was a very sick 2 ˝ year old with no muscle tone and not enough strength to lift his head is now doing very well. Our goal is for him to walk also. Others requiring special care in the community include two recent sets of premature twins.

Despite some unrest following the election and spending much time in Dili this month liaising with other organisations, Margaret and David have been able to ensure work at Atabae is not being neglected. Dave and Jose have still attended to projects and meetings while Margaret, Maria and Lepa have covered our clinics at Atabae, Damlaren and Nunudoi with the Bairo Pite team.

Maria and Lepa have been working at Bairo Pite doing courses in Obstetrics, Pharmacy, Pathology, Nursing and Emergency Care. A one week English language course in Atabae attracted 23 participants and a follow up is planned.

Jose obtained a grant for four sewing machines for the Youth Group. These have now arrived and a local lady is giving sewing lessons. Sister Gail who works with the Christian Brothers at Railaco is coming to Atabae in September to conduct a weeks course in sewing techniques.

Margeret and David expect to be back in Atabae later this month to restart the School Health and Preventive Programmes when school resumes.

Fr John was born in 1970 at Fatubena, a village in West Timor not that far from the East Timor border. He graduated from the St.Paulus Ledalero Seminary, Maumere - Flores, NTT Indonesia and was ordained at Cathedral Kristus Raja Kupang - NTT in September 2000. He was Assistant Parish Priest in Oecusse Parish prior to being Oesilo Parish Priest from 2002 to 2006 and then moving to Atabae earlier this year.

Fr John wants the people to become more involved with the running of the parish with a view to it becoming self-sufficient in the future. He hopes that FPET will be able to continue working together with Atabae Parish and has expressed thanks for what has already been achieved. He wishes to improve his English language skills to facilitate communication with us.

The Halls were among the 5,000 people, including 51 priests and a choir of 400, who gathered in the village near Atambua where Fr Marsellus was born. The gathering honoured Fr Marsellus for his 25 years of priesthood. The Halls had been especially invited for their work in Atabae Parish and as representatives of FPET.

Fr Marsellus was the priest in Atabae from before the time the founders of FPET first visited there soon after Indonsia withdrew from East Timor. He shouldered a heavy burden of responsibility in the district during those years and worked tirelessly for the community. FPET is very appreciative of his colloboration and determination to work with us through many difficult situations and overcome many obsticles such as poor communication facilities. We wish him well in his new role at Atambua in West Timor.

Food and water scarcity are priority concerns apparent to David and Margaret Hall on their return to Atabae. Rains have largely failed again in East Timor and not very likely for the next few months which are normally dry.

David is now investigating the possiblity of restoring the former army base bore to improve the local water supply at Atabae and hopes to soon deliver rainwater tanks to some of the other worst affected villages to capture any rain that does fall.

Margaret is busy catching up with all that Maria and the volunteers have been doing in the various health projects while the Halls have been away. Preliminary reports suggest that quite a bit has been achieved and more aspects of the health program are proposed to get underway soon.

Please remember the people of East Timor in your prayers. These next couple of months seem to be a critical time for East Timor. The fifth anniversary of independence occurs on 20 May 2007 and the people are now very aware of the effort required to build their new country.

With Jose Ramos Horta having won the presidential election, East Timor is now preparing for the parliamentary election scheduled for 30 June. While Xanana Gusmao and his newly formed National Congress of Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) party are seen as the main focus of opposition to the ruling Fretlin party there are 14 parties registered to contest the election.

It has been pleasing to see the Australian travel advice changed from “do not travel” to “reconsider your need for travel” this month. This reflects an easing in the level of violence which it is now hoped will allow a peaceful parliamentary election under the supervision of the international peacekeeping force.

Did you see the excellent TV documentary about the contribution of two Australian army officers, Major Michael Stone and his father Major Gary Stone to the restoration of East Timor. Gary was one of the founders of FPET and has always been the critical motivating force. Michael has also helped FPET in many practical ways. If you have a broadband connection and missed the TV program, we recommend viewing the program on the ABC Australian Story website.

Despite the Halls having to accept the Australian Government advice to temporarily withdraw to Australia, good things are continuing to happen in Atabae. The trainee workers and volunteers with support from others are carrying on a range of projects which are mainly related to community health. Maria has completed a nutrition program at Bairo Pite clinic and will return there soon to start obsterics training. Maria, Carlita and Lepra have completed the church school pupil health screening and are now going to start on the Atabae state school. The Bairo Pite visiting clinics are going well. The infant development program for babies up to one year old is also progressing well. Serv has now completed the TB training program at Bairo Pite clinic and will now start a TB screening program at Atabae. All these community health programs are addressing high priority health issues in a proactive way that adds complements the existing reactive health service.

It has been good news that the Presidential election has progressed without violence as scheduled on Monday 9 April. A second round vote for the top two candidates now needs to be held by Wednesday 9 May.

The general parliamentary election is not due until at least the end of June. There is still a potential for violence until after the new parliament is elected but the international peacekeepers seem to be managing the situation well at present.

At this month's meeting, members of FPET got a great insight into recent developments in East Timor through an excellent presentation from Major Michael Stone. He has recently returned from an extended tour of duty in East Timor for the Australian Army.

The personnel in Atabae parish are changing. Late last year Fr Carlos was appointed as assistant parish priest and he is now taking care of the parish until a new parish priest, Fr John arrives this month. The previous parish priest, Fr Marsellus has been transferred after spending a number of years at Atabae. The nuns' quarters have been completed and the nuns are to move in this month also.

The two new trainee officer positions have been filled from the promising applicants. Three unsuccessful applicants have accepted invitations to work as volunteers and will also be gaining some relevant training. As can be seen from the photo alongside, we now have a sizeable team of people working in the Atabae community to help fulfil the aspirations of the local community and FPET.

David and Margaret Hall have been very proactive in seeking funding and collaboration for a range of health, education and other community development activities well beyond what FPET and PALMS can manage on their own. The unrest and political instability in East Timor has affected Dili far more than most of the country areas but it has still hindered some efforts for collaboration to assist the Atabae community.

FPET is now supporting four trainee teachers studying for their degree at Baucau and is now arranging for some trade scholarships. All these students are expected to return to the Atabae area to help build up the local community. Several community health issues are also being addressed and we should have more of an update on these soon.

Atabae's Comoning Youth Association is continuing to be a positive influence in the community. The group have now been offered a roofless, derelict building which they are going to renovate as a club house. Renovations will include adding a new thatched roof.

The old presbytery is being renovated to accommodate the nuns who are coming to Atabae to assist in the schools. This building is going to be used briefly as a school health clinic until the nuns arrive. The health clinic will then be moved to a newer but very simple building made of local round timber and palm covering.

INDEX OF NEWS AND OTHER STORIES