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 Home Overseas Projects East Timor Project History
Capacity Building for Community Organisations 2001-2004
The East Timor NGO Forum (FONGTIL) is an association of over 270 East Timorese human rights, environmental and development organisations (both local and international), formed to provide a peak council, a common voice and strong lobby group for these organisations. It is the East Timorese equivalent of the Australian Council For International Development.
Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA supported FONGTIL's District Outreach program from November 2001 to November 2004. This was funded through the AusAID capacity building program and Australian unions.
The District Outreach program is one of the main functions of FONGTIL run by a team of seven District Liason Officers (DLOs) who coordinated and facilitated meetings in their respective districts. The information gathered through these meetings were fed back to Dili. In fact, the DLOs were viewed as the "eyes and ears" for local NGOs and Community-Based Organisations in the district by government and international agencies in Dili. It worked as a vital bridge between Dili and the districts.
During the time of Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA's support, the following were achieved:
- District outreach strategy was developed in 2002 and revised in 2004
- Seven District Liason Officers (DLOs) and one DLO coordinator was trained and mentored as facilitators and trainers by three APHEDA international advisors. The DLOs regularly organised monthly meetings, training and consultation sessions for the district government and international NGOs.
- 270 local NGOs from twelve districts received regular training on IT, organisation and project management, leadership, conflict resolution, proposal and report writing, and advocacy. The DLOs coordinated the courses.
- The DLOs worked closely with the advocacy division of FONGTIL to lobby and advocate the needs of the local NGOs in the districts.
- DLOs peacefully resolved a large, potentially serious community conflict in Maliana and Liquicia in 2002 and 2003.
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