School Libraries
1. Diocese of Baucau, Salesians of Don Bosco, Escola do Reino de Venilale |
1. Diocese of Baucau, Salesians of Don Bosco, Escola do Reino de Venilale
Escola do Reino de Venilale where the library is located
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Fiona Gleadow exploring the non-fiction collection and reading area
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Nicole Wiseman and Father Palomo |
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Address:
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Telephone:
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Library type:
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Physical area:
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Manager/Contact person/s:
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Hours open: On request
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Funding:
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Notes: Visiting this library was one of the most surreal experiences I had on the entire study tour. The library is located in a junior high school. The building itself is very impressive with purpose designed and built library spaces, new furniture, shelving and even new catalogue cards from Raeco still sitting in the boxes in which they were delivered. Swatch International have hung a giant Swatch watch high in the foyer area (seems the desire for giant objects isn’t isolated to Australian country towns). The collection consists of English language donations with most at a reading level which renders them unusable for a school library in East Timor. No new resources specifically selected to complement and support the school curriculum have been purchased as the dollars provided were for the building project and refurbishment alone. Tragic really but the saddest thing of all is that the library has never been used as a library. It is sometimes utilised for additional teaching spaces and for meetings but, as there is no trained person on staff to manage and staff the library, it remains unused. It is unbelievable that resources of this level have been invested in a building and yet no further activity has been undertaken to enable the facility to function according to its purpose.
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Hopes, desires, wishes, future directions.
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Main building of the Lolotoe Junior High School
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English classroom
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Storage cupboard full of literacy
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Lolotoe Junior High School is located in a very remote part of East Timor, south west and halfway between Maliana and Suai. It is set in spectacular landscape in a valley surrounded by the most breathtaking mountainous countryside. Life can be extremely difficult for this community. Like many parts of East Timor, poverty is all too common, and its remote location as well as a lack of community resources and facilities, compounds these difficulties.
This school however, is an example of a great success story, due mainly to the motivation and desire of the community to have educational facilities available for their children, and the staff who have been ably assisted in the development of the school and their own skills, by AVI volunteer extraordinaire Vonny Brown.
When Vonny Brown arrived in Lolotoe 4 years ago there was no school, no curriculum and no resources by way of furniture, textbooks or other classroom materials. An impressive amount of effort and sheer hard work has been put in by Vonny, other staff and community members. They now have a school, a curriculum (developed by the school itself) and even the beginnings of a community library.
The school has 350 students with subjects taught including Portuguese, English, maths, geography, history, economics, physics, biology, religion. The school is also meant to provide civic education but has not received any information about what this subject should include. As well as teaching English to students Vonny teaches other adult community members as part of a sustainable training program.
In the absence of textbooks and other teaching resources Vonny and the staff set about creating their own materials. They have amassed an entire cupboard full of high quality literacy and numeracy resources which are now used with the junior high school students as well as adults who take classes after hours. The Lolotoe community obviously takes education very seriously with excellent attendance rates and opportunities for extra classes taken on with enthusiasm and filling quickly. Enthusiasm is so great that Vonny has upon request provided tuition on public holidays.
Another example of this great desire for learning is the situation of the “boarders”. It took me some time to comprehend what I was being told about these young students who live on site, fending for themselves, so that they can access education. These are children in their early teens who, without supervision, have to feed themselves, do their own laundry, and cope with being away from their families during the week. When food is available they will typically have one meal a day. They walk home at the end of the school week to be with their families over the weekend and return on Mondays.
An exciting development is the beginning of a library. A room has been selected on campus to house a community library. This project has been initiated by the Lolotoe community themselves. Some shelving has been acquired and donated books (mainly English) stock the shelves. It is pleasing to see that the volunteers working on the development of the library service have been selective about the books they are including in the collection. Two Lolotoe community members recently attended work experience and training in Dili at the Xanana Gusmao Reading Room. This experience was positive and assisted greatly in their confidence and ability to establish the new Lolotoe Community Library.
Although the school has made great progress, they are by no means well off, and in fact require much assistance in the way of resources. These include building maintenance (inclement weather has seen the roof of two of the classrooms ripped off and blown away rendering the rooms unusable), furniture, books, classroom materials and stationary. There is no allocated budget available for the school or community library. Not surprisingly one of Vonny’s many activities is fundraising.
AVI Volunteer Vonny Brown and “boarders” outside a typical on site dwelling which sleeps several children
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Boarders’ cooking area
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The beginnings of a Community Library
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