Well here I am back in Timor Leste doing another round of training related to Solar Power.

PV systems are really starting to take off here with the Government and many NGO’s rolling out systems at an increasing rate. The Government, in particular, has recognised the need for power systems like PV Solar to fill in the gaps in the national grid. This is important, as many people (around 20%) will never have reliable access to the national grid due to topology and geographic issues.

With the increase in installed systems there is an increased need for quality installers, effective handover and training to communities after installation, and an ongoing maintenance program, particularly for community based systems.

I am extremely fortunate to be able to play a part in this amazing development through my association with the ATA (Alternative Technology Association), Mercy Corps, local vocational training organisations such as CNEFP (National Centre for Training and Employment) in Tibar just outside Dili together with a number of Government staff responsible for the roll-out of technologies, including PV system in the districts.

Last week we held some training sessions with CNEFP and Government staff and followed up the training with a site visit to put in practice all that we had learned. It was a fabulous trip as the following photo gallery shows

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The location is “Leodato” Aldeia (village)
“Leimia Sorin Balun” Suco (sub-sub-district)
“Hatulia” Sub-District
“Ermera” District

Lat, Lon:  -8.855806,125.372275

IF you enter this into Google maps you will see exactly where the village is.

This is the precise location of the meals table in the guest house at the chapel shown in one of the images below 🙂

It’s great to be back in Timor Leste helping our northern neighbours as they rebuild their nation. It’s even more gratifying knowing that we have the support and assistance of a large group of people who have donated their time and money to help us in this great work.

Here is a random selection of photos from our first installation in Atekru, a small fishing village on Atauro, the island off the coast of Dili. We were warmly welcomed by the community and the ATA and Timor Adventure groups had a fabulous time installing lights and power at the local primary school.

I’ll have more details shortly, but for now enjoy the happy snaps.

Volunteers from the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) are once again heading to East Timor in July for three to four weeks installing Solar Power Systems and conducting Training in Remote communities across the country.

The International Project Group (IPG) in the ATA (wow! that’s a mouthful of acronyms) have a diverse mix of projects to complete this year, in collaboration with our friends and sponsors in Timor and Australia, including several large community and school based systems together with the supply of equipment and training for the roll-out of almost 200 household systems.

Many of the volunteers take unpaid leave and pay their own way as part of their commitment to our friends in East Timor. This year the ATA has setup some projects on Pozible to help raise funds to cover some of the costs (eg. airfares, accommodation, etc.) for the volunteers.

Pozible is an Australian Crowd Funding website set up to help people raise funds for projects in a variety of fields. This new kind of model allows people to participate and help mostly small to medium projects get off the ground by accessing funding outside the traditional funding model. Rather than investing, people pledge money to the projects, and in return, the project creators offer rewards in line with the level of commitment. There are similar schemes in place overseas and the model in proving to be very popular and effective for all kinds of creative projects.

If you would like to help out this year’s projects in East Timor or find out more, head over to the ATA page (click-here) on the Pozible website and check out the current projects.