Timor Leste has 41 % of its population live under the
poverty line. Poverty touches every aspect of life. Since the household
income rate is $1.33 per day nationally and $ 50.00 monthly in rural area, it makes some people barely afford basic necessities. This limited income might affect education due to fifty percent of adult population (of 15 years and older) is
illiterate. They might need some sort of subsidiary teaching from other young educated personals since the current quota of school teacher is less quantity and quality. Another issue is the children have common problems of
malnutrition both from poor and rich households. Countryside residents even have rife living conditions. Semi-permanent
housing is accounted for 32.6 %, and they are usually not so decent, some of which the gust of winds could just go in from the facade and out from the backyard or vice-versa. In addition, locals in rural area need extra physical efforts to fetch water for every day use. It is not limited to those horrible aforementioned conditions, it is actually more than that. The plights are believed as the colonial result, and people believe that it will be ended soon, at will.
There has been lots of work on it, fortunately. The government has spent billions of dollars since the independence up to the year of 2013. Recently, the proposal of the state budget for this year's,
2014 is about $1.5 billion. That does not include the figures from other sources like aids, etc. Even though those billions are for only a one and so million population, there is still public outcry regarding the outcome. Civil Society both individuals and organizations who are supposed to be the actors for the development itself, are idly criticizing the incompetent management. On the other hand, the government claims there has been not enough budget to cover all the necessities. One blames the other side, implying that only money and high standard human skills could change those conditions, and the government needs just that to change the status-quo. This attitude is completely unrealistic if one had it, and therefore, some extra efforts from all walks of life, particularly: youngsters and intellectuals, are needed to improve the deep-seated issues.
A new born nation like Timor Leste should keep the potent power of volunteerism. Voluntary work has proved its potency in achieving a common goal. We had freed the people from colonialism and invasion. Even though people who dedicated time and sacrificed lives for the independence were the minority, they eased the referendum to happen ultimately . Every single citizen knows that the seventy eight percent was the determinant factor for the independence; however, voluntary spirit from the strong men in the guerrilla, clandestine, and diplomatic fronts laid a basic momentum and showed a landmark to the international community. No commander has ever paid his members to carry guns for walking up and down the hills to fight, no clandestine responsible person hired his secret aides to bring in and out the information, and no political asylum seekers were paid to come to exile all over the world to chanting their grievances to the world. Those people were nationalists, no matter how the risk was, one important thing in mind was freedom, wanted to be independent. And all those actors were volunteers, they executed missions perfectly and precisely, no complain about challenges they faced. This indicates that Timorese could transform tiniest things better without having to have abundance financial resource and a so-called high standard human resource capability. It simply needs not-so-greedy people to volunteering time and skills to help.
This moral legacy should be kept to alleviate another issue as the country walks on a new path. Even though volunteering as previously is no longer absolutely relevant to the independence era, it still remains the most cost effective way to deal with unreachable communities where one-dollar and
thirty-three cents per day is impossible to cover all the the needs. Similarly, some countries that are now struggling with poverty have advocated vounteerism from their own end. In Zimbabwe, Africa, for example, the
head of the UN mission said that volunteers have contributed significantly into the alleviation of burden of unfortunate individuals. Therefore, the government is advised to consider the voluntary work into the national policy. This reality indicates that even though there has been enormous financial aids to Sub Saharan Africa, including Zimbabwe, voluntary activity remains playing an important role for the community where money can't buy happiness. There are certainly lots of unheard voluntary successful stories in other developing countries from which Timorese could learn.
Not only worn-torn and poor nations, people in industrialized nations seemingly believe on the potency of voluntary work as well. This could change some people's attitude believing that affluent society might not need volunteers because they have sufficient resources to deal with every social issue. This attitude might be contrary to what it is. Look at the
United States of America's stats, the so-called superpower nation on earth. In 2012, for example, 64.5 million of Americans volunteered at least once between September 2011 to September 2012 although it declined in that year. Given that US population was 308,745,538 in 2010, the number of volunteer was small, but the point is it might have helped some needy people, and is going to increase overtime I believe.
Canada is accounted to have 65 % of teenagers volunteered in their communities. More interesting is that Canadian employers supported 57% of their employees who wanted to volunteer time for social service in the community. More closer geographically to Timor Leste,
Australia also had an increase of volunteer from 34% in 2006 to 36 % in 2010.
Singapore which nearly similar in land and population size to Timor Leste also has an intriguing story of volunteerism. Most of Singaporeans were reported volunteering time instead of money. These countries' societies aware that let the government alone to serve the people in need may hard to achieve a just life for everybody. No matter how affluent the country is, hands in hands collaboration would make their own community be healthier and happier.
Given that volunteerism is common in the developed countries' societies, voluntary passion of those people have significantly spread globally and played a role in post conflict nations all around the world, and Timor Leste is no exception. Just some years back, the international volunteerism has been around in Timor Leste since the start of the UN's mission, both came with the UN missions or bilateral missions. Volunteer which incorporated with the UN mission had ended a year and half ago, in 2012. On the other side, bilateral volunteer still exist in East Timor. For example, Australia, which is one of the finest friends and suppliers of voluntary workers. Since the 1999 referedum, it has dispatched volunteers around 475 skilled professionals. The agency managing the volunteer mission in East Timor is Called
AVI (Australian Volunters International). This number might have been higher because other Australian individuals and organizations also have volunteered in the country independently. Not to mention the United States, Europe Union, and certainly Japan, Korea, and others. Those volunteers were and will always be helpful contributing to the efforts of poverty alleviation.
Learning from the stories and stats of volunteerism in other countries, what Timorese have done so far to correspond to their own reality?. This is an obvious question for me personally and probably for those of you who accidentally read this piece of writing. I believe, voluntary work has also been known as one of the Timorese's identities. People have a custom of teamwork in doing communal work such as building houses, collective harvest seasonally, providing care to the extended families who were in need, and so on. However, as the needs grow and change overtime, particularly post the independence term, the society needs to mobilize volunteers from youngsters and intellectuals in a more organized way so that it will enable the society to be more resilient. Sadly, some people, who hold a strategic position to promote voluntary work, are so self-centered and economic-oriented. Self vested is pronounced in public conducts because voluntary activities barely exposed into the public realm where it could instill interest, instead they are mostly concentrating on how to spend generated revenue from the limited natural resources, and it is unlikely meeting the expectations due to the fact that the
corruption record is getting a good shape.
The inertia of Timorese has led to the predominant foreign volunteers' role in the country post the independence, and it can bring up two ends. The first, the history had shown that the power of volunteers had helped the Timorese to the climax during the 24 struggle. Being purely motivated by the humanity value, they believed that Timorese
at the time were murdered, tortured and violated of their rights.Numerous unpaid people all over the world from different background: lawyers, political activists, journalists assisted Timorese during the process, contributed different form of assistance. From this story, Timorese presumably believe such motivations still exist on any similar missions that were and will be coming post the independence. On the other hand; however, among the flow of international volunteers, individual voluntary mission could also potentially be an attempt to get a chance for gleaning some economic benefits from the country. This is corroborated by the uncovered recent inteligence
espionage activity in the Timor Sea negotiation project. Using subterfuge aid project, construction workers were hired to tecnically install listening devices into the the then Prime Minister Marii Alkatiri's cabinet office building. The project was believed to be a pure grant because in 1999 - 2004 and maybe so, the time when the country had no national budget, the government mostly relied on foreign aids for even to rehabilitate a Prime Minister's office, a chamber in a building, you imagine. It turned out to be a fake voluntary or aid mission. The project was designed to gathering information and data for a foreign country's interest. This is no longer what Timorese used to get from its friends or allies.
This incident should have been a big lesson, and the socioeconomic problems in each one's backyard should not only be singled out as the government's responsibility other than shared responsibility with all the societal components. Youngsters who are now in the process of building up personal capability through formal and non-formal education as well as the ones who have been on duty should start the ball rolling. Serving one's own community where each person belongs to would be a viable start. This is what Canadian young people have done somewhere in their own community. Or, if donating money for the needy people could be a hazard, why dont you just set a side some of your leisure time to serve people in need like Singaporeans did?, or why don't you tell your employers to let your friends and you to help needy people in a neighborhood that you think in a severe condition of something as the Canadian employers did?. Those are basic actions that is society probably lacking of in amid of minor social and economic crisis in the grass root level. No data has shown a public-steered voluntary activity has kicked off now ehere in the country, instead non-governmental organizations that instituted to initiate, mostly labeled relying heavily on the government subsidies which make it hardly distinguishable from the public institution. Good news though, a group of
young people recently met with the President of Republic regarding voluntary activity. In addition to that, there might be some undocumented voluntary activities done by the university student as part of the academic requirement, yet it should be a much bigger movement. There is a lot of benefits, subsequently, come up with the voluntary activities. Generally speaking, It can certainly change your extended family's life since you help your own community. Another benefit that comes up personally once you volunteer is that you will live happier and healthier than other people who set a high life standard and careless to the unprivileged folks,
look at this research study.
Each of young generation individual should think about this not-so-new-saying from the President of the US, Kenedy says "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I personally interpret this as a motivation to do something voluntarily for the public where your role is needed while you are supposed to be free of change. If every Timorese young personal is more money-centric, I am wondering about a lot of voices coming from everywhere saying young generation is READY in respond to a
resignation plan from Xanana Gusmao, the incumbent Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste to trial a first ever top political power control from the young generation after Xanana, Mari Alkatiri and Ramos Horta, the founding fathers of the nation. Responses had came out absolute that young generation is ready to take over any tier vacuum power after the resignation. This readiness is probably true since anecdotal evidence shows that young generation individuals have earned different level of educations: Bachelors, Masters and PHDs in various field of studies except rocket science from anywhere across the globe. However, This 'ready' is too good to be true from wider perspective considering the reality of vested-interest domination in public institutions. It is axiomatic that young generation who have already been on power in several public institutions rely only upon the money to come by changing everything even though the demands from grassroot level are overwhelming and requiring more efforts. Therefore, the statement of "ready" from young generation was a little bit ambiguous. The readiness gesture does not correpond to the fact that young personal leadership is doing less than what it is needed, whereas the reality in the community requires more efforts, and the financial resource is impossibly changing every single issue overnight, for which people are calling. One could imagine what would happen if young men consider the readiness is a sort of well-prepared skills to pursue a professional career while expecting a high rate of salary instead of pursuing career while volunteering some leisure time to help people whom the policy does not come to affect immediately. Young generation still need to do more than what professional jobs assigned. It is not only professional skills indicating your readiness; however, the passion to do more for the community where money still cant cover needs would probably the most important indicator. If young generation is not disinguishable from the old generation in essence, then what is the difference between old generation or veterans and young generation?. Age? you probably would say this, right?. But, anyway you name it.
Finally, Timor Leste is relatively a new nation as its fellow world's newest nation,
South Sudan is now in a good shape of evil achievement. The two countries hold a same international tittle of 'New Born Nations', but Timor Leste must defy the gravity of the evil of conflict in order to be different for a bright future. Only young generation can accertain the bright future. So much homeworks remain to work on like a long way to go for Soft and hard development. It is pity to see young individuals are competing for a limited resources instead of competing to serve needy people in their own home. Such attitude prevails because there might be a belief that financial resource is everything to improve people's life. Or I might change a little bit of the Reggae Legend, Bob Marley's lyric "No Woman No Cry" to become "No Money No Service". This is only a money-centric person would think of this, and this is not what veterans are expecting from the young generation. In addition, inspired by the older and advanced nations in the world, human is a primary and sustainable changer other than money which is merely a means. They tend to believe it, doing it, and the rate is getting higher. Timorese young people should change their mindset and act accordingly. Otherwise, you can just talk the talk while the lion would come somewhere and eat you!. Scary ha?.
Hope this gives you an inspiration...
