Connecting people - transforming lives for Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) in Timor Leste

Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) sends skilled Kiwis overseas to share their experience and knowledge directly with local people and communities. These volunteers create new opportunities for people that will continue to ripple across communities and generations to come. I’m taking up a two-year VSA assignment in Timor Leste as community engagement advisor at the Xanana Gusmão Reading Room: http://xananagusmaoreadingroom.com/en/

Timor Leste is a country that has undergone incredible hardship, losing a third of its population during the two-decades long invasion and occupation by Indonesia. Timor Leste's road to independence - achieved on 20 May 2002 - was long and traumatic. Today 60% of its population are under 25 with an estimated 50 per cent of children suffering from a form of malnutrition called stunting – one of the highest rates in Asia, while the adult literacy rate is only 67.5%.

It costs VSA $50,000 a year to put a volunteer into the field, so we all raise what we can towards that cost. Please help me by bidding on one of the donated artworks shown here. The largest donations will win one of several artworks, and this money along with any donations will go to VSA to assist them with my costs in Timor Leste.