BUILD I.T. CENRE FOR YOUTH IN TIMOR-LESTE GoFundME Booster Promotion CrowdFunding Campaign CrowdFundingExposure Viral Exposure

I’m a Victoria University Community Development graduate from Timor-Leste.

I am launching this fundraising campaign ending in January next year to address the dire need to establish a computer centre in my home town of Lacluta in Timor-Leste. Lacluta is a rural community in the eastern part of the country and we speak the Tetun Terik language. We have 12 schools ranged in our little town, from Kindergarten to high schools and recently we have made efforts to make IT support available to students and young people who need computer skills for their future whether it be in tertiary education abroad or simply within their career.

We have 10 desktop computers, photocopy and printing machines and are now in the process on building our startup-up. There will be another 10 computers coming from Australia early next year however we face very limited space to house our service. Currently we are running the centre from our children’s grandparents house, it is very tight and with your support we will be able to build a centre in a central location to provide access to our growing community to online resources, knowledge and skills. We will also give business to local builders and businesses that supply materials.

My brother, who has a background in IT and myself are passionate to give back our to our community in the form of skills and knowledge. Currently our centre is operated as a social business and we hope to continue to deliver a heavily subsidised learning experience. We charge our clients .25 US cents per hour for access to our centre which pays for maintenance of the equipment. This compared with much higher rates for access to IT from the more commercial oriented IT providers really gives young people affordable access to much needed skills and resources. The real focus of our centre is for it to be a place for bringing together students and youth to develop their skills, ideas and creativity towards social activities that can support themselves and the community and we will hold all kinds of events that help point our youngsters in that direction.

Currently I am attending an internship in Tuscon, Arizona in the USA with a focus on community solutions program training in leadership and social business. I will be here until December this year. The training requires scholarship recipients to implement real community projects back in their country of origin from January next year. This funding will allow us to build and house a centre that can provide access to digital information and the power of information technology to many young people in my area.

Thank you very much for your kind support.

Mira Fonseca