OPENING OUR HEARTS Timor-Leste

After unavoidable delays and shutdowns for travel, the presentation of credentials by ambassadors to the President of TimorLeste took place in a virtual ceremony at the presidential palace in Dili on 11 November 2021. Over a dozen non-resident heads of mission were able to attend remotely from various centres around the world. This event is the final stage in the official recognition by the host government of ambassadors who have been nominated to head diplomatic missions there.

In the case of the Order of Malta, along with representatives from Israel, Bangladesh, Denmark and Azerbaijan, the occasion was an excellent opportunity to outline the work of the Order in Timor-Leste over the past decade. Ours is captured in this extract from my address at the presentation:

“In accordance with its role as a neutral, apolitical and independent presence dedicated to humanitarian works, the Order of Malta, in cooperation with the Government of Timor-Leste, has been able to play a part in advancing the health and wellbeing of the people through our medical clinic in Dili, through our maternal and infant welfare services, through the scholarship program for the poorest students, always working in partnership with local institutions – orphanages and schools, food programs and emergency relief – such as was delivered by our volunteers to some 20 families left homeless after the terrible rains over Easter.

For my part, Your Excellency, and speaking on behalf of the embassy I want to assure you that we are committed to continue working in harmony with the government and to inform the associates and friends of the Order in the Asia and Oceania regions of the great advances in health which the Democratic Republic has made since its independence and to encourage them in increasing their support to bring about further progress for the people in the decade of the 2020s.”

As Australian members of the Order would know, the clinic, which is next door to one of the poorest suburbs in the capital, provides free medical care for the local people with special emphasis on maternal, neo-natal and infancy health. Alastair Furnival was appointed to the role of Counsellor at the embassy by our Foreign Affairs Department in Rome. He has mapped out an outreach program which will enable a doctor, a nurse and an assistant to travel in an ambulance acquired by the Order to villages away from Dili which do not have any means for young mothers with babies, and for the ill and the elderly to get to local medical or nursing care. This will be a single step in bringing the clinic to them.

An equally important development in 2021 occurred during an exchange with the Grand Hospitaller at the Asia Pacific Conference which, because of the pandemic, was hosted online by the Hong Kong Association. He drew attention to the special needs of the people of Timor-Leste and invited the other regional associations to support the work of the Australian Association in setting up local structures to work for the poor and the sick.

Before the conference, the embassy provided his office with a paper – The First 1000 Days – highlighting the devastating long-term health effects of malnutrition and poor sanitation, for mothers and their infants in the period from conception to age two, in Timor Leste. The paper was prepared by the embassy with expert input from Professor Michelle Campbell, Dr Robert Costa, Dr Cathy Costa from the Clinic Oversight Committee with the vital engagement of Malcolm Irving. The Grand Hospitaller took the opportunity to recommend our work to a large regional ‘gathering’ from South East to North East Asia. The engagement of members of the Order beyond Australia from Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and ideally Portugal, the former colonial power, will be essential if the work is to take root among the Timorese people.

The scholarship program Creating Leaders, an initiative of David Scarf in his time as ambassador, funds nine students from primary to secondary school. Despite interruption to schooling throughout the Island in 2021, three new students from year 9 at the Jesuit college at Kasait, a half hour drive along the coast west of the capital, entered the program at the end of 2021. There have been five new or soon-to-be sponsors who came forward last year. There is good reason to expect the embassy target of 30 students can be met in the 2022-2024 triennium.

Finally, Graziella da Cruz, who has done invaluable work for the embassy for several years, assembled a team of half a dozen or so volunteers to respond to the Easter Sunday flood disaster which caused widespread losses of life, homes and infrastructure.

Archbishop Virgilio Do Carmo da Silva of Dili immediately answered a request from the embassy and suggested that the Hera district an hour’s drive out of Dili, was in particular need. Within days Graziela’s volunteers had visited the homeless, flood devastated families there. They brought essentials for nearly 20 families who were housed on the open verandas of a recently completed convent school building, making a number of trips on damaged roads.

The photos of volunteers in Order of Malta vests carrying food and other essential supplies to the children of destitute families, even before the floods subsided, was inspiring. It was a reminder of the core mission of the Order as a Catholic and charitable institution. It was also, personally, a wakeup of sorts. It pointed to the need, in the next three years, to inspire a corps of local Timorese associates and volunteers; and for them to take on the job of bringing the Order home.

The Order of in is next door to one of the poorest suburbs in the capital. It provides free medical care for the local people with special emphasis on maternal, neo-natal and infancy health.